“Well, but,” said Lady Arthur, “since you seem to have been so hard put to it, as single men, what’s to be done with the married man who ruins an innocent body?—­What punishment, Lady Towers, shall we find out for such an one; and what reparation to the injured?” This was said with a particular view to the earl, on a late scandalous occasion; as I afterwards found.

“As to the punishment of the gentleman,” replied Lady Towers, “where the law is not provided for it, it must be left, I believe, to his conscience.  It will then one day be heavy enough.  But as to the reparation to the woman, so far as it can be made, it will be determinable as the unhappy person may or may not know, that her seducer is a married man:  if she knows he is, I think she neither deserves redress nor pity, though it elevate not his guilt.  But if the case be otherwise, and she had no means of informing herself that he was married, and he promised to make her his wife, to be sure, though she cannot be acquitted, he deserves the severest punishment that can be inflicted.—­What say you, Mrs. B.?”

“If I must speak, I think that since custom now exacts so little regard to virtue from men, and so much from women, and since the designs of the former upon the latter are so flagrantly avowed and known, the poor creature, who suffers herself to be seduced, either by a single or married man, with promises, or without, has only to sequester herself from the world, and devote the rest of her days to penitence and obscurity.  As to the gentleman,” added I, “he must, I doubt, be left to his conscience, as you say, Lady Towers, which he will one day have enough to do to pacify.”

“Every young lady has not your angelic perfection, Madam,” said Mr. Dormer.  “And there are cases in which the fair sex deserve compassion, ours execration.  Love may insensibly steal upon a soft heart; when once admitted, the oaths, vows, and protestations of the favoured object, who declaims against the deceivers of his sex, confirm her good opinion of him, till having lull’d asleep her vigilance, in an unguarded hour he takes advantage of her unsuspecting innocence.  Is not such a poor creature to be pitied?  And what punishment does not such a seducer deserve?”

“You have put, Sir,” said I, “a moving case, and in a generous manner.  What, indeed, does not such a deceiver deserve?”—­“And the more,” said Mrs. Chapman, “as the most innocent heart is generally the most credulous.”—­“Very true,” said my countess; “for such an one as would do no harm to others, seldom suspects any from others; and her lot is very unequally cast; admired for that very innocence which tempts some brutal ravager to ruin it.”—­“Yet, what is that virtue,” said the dean, “which cannot stand the test?”

“But,” said Lady Towers, very satirically, “whither, ladies, are we got?  We are upon the subject of virtue and honour.  Let us talk of something in which the gentlemen can join with us.  This is such an one, you see, that none but the dean and Mr. Dormer can discourse upon.”—­“Let us then,” retorted Mr. Martin, “to be even with one lady at least find a subject that will be new to her:  and that is CHARITY.”