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elder sister, at a boarding school in Queen-square, where she had become perfectly accomplished, About a year before our acquaintance began, she had been accidentally seen walking in the garden of the square, to which the young ladies had access, by an officer of dragoons, who, being struck with her beauty, had employed every art of bribery and intrigue, first to open a correspondence by letter, and afterwards to obtain a personal interview, of which opportunity he made such good use that he succeeded in seducing this amiable child, then just fifteen years of age, to elope from her school, to sacrifice to him, honour, fortune, and parental affection, and entail on herself ruin, remorse, and endless shame!
This gallant hero treated her with the fondest attention, and spared no expense to gratify her every wish, and, by a continual round of splendid dissipation, to banish any reflections which might otherwise obtrude themselves; and in this (owing to her youth land the natural levity of her sex,) he so far succeeded that she felt not, for the first six months, those compunctions which, sooner or later, must attend conscious guilt. At the end of that time, however, her protector, being ordered abroad with his regiment, left her with a slender, provision in possession; but for which he made up with most liberal promises of future bounty. It is probable he had by this time gratified a passion which was at
