“What, all this while, is poor Profusiana doing?  She would be glad, perhaps, of a suitable proposal, and would, it may be, give up some of her gaieties and extravagances:  for Profusiana has wit, and is not totally destitute of reason, when she suffers herself to think.  But her conduct procures her not one solid friendship, and she has not in a twelvemonth, among a thousand professions of service, one devoir that she can attend to, or a friend that she can depend upon.  All the women she sees, if she excels them, hate her:  the gay part of the men, with whom she accompanies most, are all in a plot against her honour.  Even the gentlemen, whose conduct in the general is governed by principles of virtue, come down to these public places to partake of the innocent freedoms allowed there, and oftentimes give themselves airs of gallantry, and never have it in their thoughts to commence a treaty of marriage with an acquaintance begun upon that gay spot.  What solid friendships and satisfactions then is Profusiana excluded from!

“Her name indeed is written in every public window, and prostituted, as I may call it, at the pleasure of every profligate or sot, who wears a diamond to engrave it:  and that it may be, with most vile and barbarous imputations and freedoms of words, added by rakes, who very probably never exchanged a syllable with her.  The wounded trees are perhaps also taught to wear the initials of her name, linked, not unlikely, and widening as they grow, with those of a scoundrel.  But all this while she makes not the least impression upon one noble heart:  and at last, perhaps, having run on to the end of an uninterrupted race of follies, she is cheated into the arms of some vile fortune-hunter; who quickly lavishes away the remains of that fortune which her extravagance had left; and then, after the worst usage, abandoning her with contempt, she sinks into an obscurity that cuts short the thread of her life, and leaves no remembrance, but on the brittle glass, and still more faithless bark, that ever she had a being.”

“Alas, alas! what a butterfly of a day,” said Miss (an expression she remembered of Lady Towers), “was poor Profusiana!—­What a sad thing to be so dazzled by worldly grandeur, and to have so many admirers, and not one real friend!”

“Very true, my dear; and how carefully ought a person of a gay and lively temper to watch over it I And what a rock may public places be to a lady’s reputation, if she be not doubly vigilant in her conduct, when she is exposed to the censures and observations of malignant crowds of people; many of the worst of whom spare the least those who are most unlike themselves.”

“But then, Madam,” said Miss, “would Profusiana venture to play at public places?  Will ladies game, Madam?  I have heard you say, that lords, and sharpers but just out of liveries, in gaming, are upon a foot in every thing, save that one has nothing to lose, and the other much, besides his reputation!  And will ladies so disgrace their characters, and their sex, as to pursue this pernicious diversion in public?”