As soon as he was gone, I felt the usual consequence
of the first launch into vice (for my love-attachment to
Charles never appear'd to me in that light). I was instant-
ly borne away down the stream, without making back to the
shore. My dreadful necessities, my gratitude, and above
all, to say the plain truth, the dissipation and diversion
I began to find, in this new acquaintance, from the black
corroding thoughts my heart had been a prey to ever since
the absence of my dear Charles, concurr'd to stun all con-
trary reflections. If I now thought of my first, my only
charmer, it was still with the tenderness and regret of
the fondest love, embitter'd with the consciousness that I
was no longer worthy of him. I could have begg'd my bread
with him all over the world, but wretch that I was, I had
neither the virtue nor courage requisite not to outlive my
separation from him!
Yet, had not my heart been thus pre-ingaged, Mr. H .
. . might probably have been the sole master of it; but
the place was full, and the force of conjunctures alone had
made him the possessor of my person; the charms of which
had, by the bye, been his sole object and passion, and
were, of course, no foundation for a love either very deli-
cate or very durable.
He did not return till six in the evening to take me
away to my new lodgings; and my moveables being soon pack'd,
and convey'd into a hackney-coach, it cost me but little
regret to take my leave of a landlady whom I thought I had
so much reason not to be overpleas'd with; and as for her
part, she made no other difference to my staying or going,
but what that of the profit created.
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