VOLUME II.

Chapter XVIII.  Reflections.

Chapter XIX.  A Mistake Discovered.

Chapter XX.  Virtue never appears so amiable as when reaching forth her hand to raise a fallen sister.  Chapter of Accidents.

Chapter XXI.  Teach me to feel another’s woe, To hide the fault I see, That mercy I to others show That mercy show to me.  Pope.

Chapter XXII.  Sorrows of the Heart.

Chapter XXIII.  A Man May Smile, and Smile, and Be a Villain.

Chapter XXIV.  Mystery Developed.

Chapter XXV.  Reception of a Letter.

Chapter XXVI.  What Might Be Expected.

Chapter XXVII.  Pensive she mourn’d, and hung her languid head, Like a fair lily overcharg’d with dew.

Chapter XXVIII.  A Trifling Retrospect.

Chapter XXIX.  We Go Forward Again.

Chapter XXX.  And what is friendship but a name, A charm that lulls to sleep, A shade that follows wealth and fame, But leaves the wretch to weep.

Chapter XXXI.  Subject Continued.

Chapter XXXII.  Reasons Why and Wherefore.

Chapter XXXIII.  Which People Void of Feeling Need Not Read.

Chapter XXXIV.  Retribution.

Chapter XXXV.  Conclusion.

PREFACE.

For the perusal of the young and thoughtless of the fair sex, this Tale of Truth is designed; and I could wish my fair readers to consider it as not merely the effusion of Fancy, but as a reality.  The circumstances on which I have founded this novel were related to me some little time since by an old lady who had personally known Charlotte, though she concealed the real names of the characters, and likewise the place where the unfortunate scenes were acted:  yet as it was impossible to offer a relation to the public in such an imperfect state, I have thrown over the whole a slight veil of fiction, and substituted names and places according to my own fancy.  The principal characters in this little tale are now consigned to the silent tomb:  it can therefore hurt the feelings of no one; and may, I flatter myself, be of service to some who are so unfortunate as to have neither friends to advise, or understanding to direct them, through the various and unexpected evils that attend a young and unprotected woman in her first entrance into life.

While the tear of compassion still trembled in my eye for the fate of the unhappy Charlotte, I may have children of my own, said I, to whom this recital may be of use, and if to your own children, said Benevolence, why not to the many daughters of Misfortune who, deprived of natural friends, or spoilt by a mistaken education, are thrown on an unfeeling world without the least power to defend themselves from the snares not only of the other sex, but from the more dangerous arts of the profligate of their own.