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Her guilt.

Lord Eastwood soon began to entertain very strong and very unequivocal suspicions of his wife's fidelity: he watch ed her himself, and set spies over her conduct; and we are sorry to say, that, in effect she had been and continued for some time criminal and faithless!

In the mean time, his Lordship had conceived an unbounded and sincere affection for a lady in a public line of life; but who well deserved to obtain all that purity of love, respect, and esteem, which she has ever enjoyed; and will, we hope, long enjoy through the whole course of her correct and exemplary life. Of this truly admirable woman we have never heard but one opinion.

Lord Eastwood, even if he wished to corrupt her principles, or possess her person in any illicit way, knew the innate virtue and delicacy of her mind too well

Continued.

even to attempt it; never would she see him but in the presence of her mother; never trusted herself with him alone, either in public or private. She has carefully guarded her susceptible heart against the encroachments of love; she could not but be grateful to Lord Eastwood for continual acts of friendship and generosity bestowed on her, and on every part of her family. She was sensible how great his assistance had been to her, in making her rise to the summit of eminence in her profession; and gratitude, in so pure and excellent a bosom, easily admitted its growing into a more tender passion; but it was pure, as the seraphic sentiment of an angel; nor entertained one thought of supplanting Lady Eastwood, though she knew she had so fatally destroyed her own peace, as well as offended against her husband's honour.

Lord Eastwood had those proofs of his lady's criminality, which he well

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A faux Pas leads to a Fall.

knew in a court of justice would bring him ample retribution. But he was wealthy enough, and some few in the world, though they strongly suspected her ill conduct, and others, who dared not speak of it, had conviction of it; yet, for very cogent reasons, at least to him, Lord Eastwood smothered his resentment, cast a cloud of obscurity over the business, and determined she should yet remain in his house, and bear her title undisputed.

Females of virtue, however, shunned her; but she had all the spirit of fashion about her; she had broken down the barriers of decorum; and she revelled in pleasures little suited to her once delicate and elegant mind; but which, while the intoxication of gratified inclination, and the ardent affection of an enraptured lover, not long blessed with possession, continued, she hushed every rising reflection, and lulled with the poisonous

No Comfort found in a dissipated Life.

opiate of lawless love, the monitor, conscience!

Her society consisted chiefly of officers; in whose company she would, with her cherished male friend, dine at a regimental mess, be the worshipped idol of the table, and the life of the martial party: but mirth and wine soon began to lose their influence and though she never was seen intoxicated by the latter, she could take her bottle of Madeira with the most indefatigable military votary of Bacchus.

But the polished mind of an elegant female, who has sacrificed all her principles of duty, and all her claims to respect, for love, and love only, cannot long lose its poignant reflections in those distracting pleasures, which add to instead of diminishing their baneful effects. The heart of a woman of Lady Eastwood's natural delicacy, could not find gratification, consolation, or comfort, in

Repentance.

a life of noisy and thought-repelling dissipation.

Her mind became the prey of bitterest anguish, and of the most sincere and unaffected repentance, which preyed, and rapidly worked destruction, on her delicate frame: she dismissed her lover, and solemnly vowed never to see him more!

He loved her dearly, and fervently as ever; and this last laudable sacrifice she made to duty, it is thought, hastened her dissolution. Oh! sacred love, why is thy hymeneal torch only mutually kindled by humble cottagers? while, for the high-born and wealthy thou tearest asunder the special licence, and laughest, with demoniac triumph, at the ambition of parents, who sacrifice the unwilling fair to gold and title!

Lord Eastwood had long ceased to

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