less
errors and misrepresentations, he was no sooner entitled, by the
familiarity of communication, to ask such a favour, than he earnestly
entreated her to entertain him with the particulars of her story; and,
by dint of importunity, she was at length prevailed upon, in a select
party, to gratify his curiosity, by the account given in the following
chapter.

CHAPTER LXXXI.

The Memoirs of a Lady of Quality.

"By the circumstances of the story which I am going to relate, you will
be convinced of my candour, while you are informed of my indiscretion.
You will be enabled, I hope, to perceive, that, howsoever my head may
have erred, my heart hath always been uncorrupted, and that I have been
unhappy, because I loved, and was a woman.

"I believe I need not observe, that I was the only child of a man of
good fortune, who indulged me in my infancy with all the tenderness of
paternal affection; and, when I was six years old, sent me to a private
school, where I stayed till my age was doubled, and became such a
favourite, that I was, even in those early days, carried to all the
places of public diversion, the court itself not excepted, an indulgence
that flattered my love of pleasure, to which I was naturally addicted,
and encouraged those ideas of vanity and ambition which spring up so
early in the human mind.

"I was lively and good-natured, my imagination apt to run riot, my heart
liberal and disinterested, though I was so obstinately attached to my
own opinions, that I could not well brook contradiction; and, in the
whole of my disposition, resembled that of Henry V., as described by
Shakespeare.

"In my thirteenth year I went to Bath, where I was first introduced
into the world as a woman, having been entitled to that privilege by my
person, which was remarkably tall for my years; and there my fancy was
quite captivated by the variety of diversions in which I was continually
engaged. Not that the parties were altogether new to me, but because I
now found myself considered as a person of consequence, and surrounded
by a crowd of admirers, who courted my acquaintance, and fed my vanity
with praise and adulation. In short, whether or not I deserved their
encomiums, I leave the world to judge; but my person was commended, and
my talent in dancing met with universal applause. No wonder, then,
that everything appeared joyous to a young creature, who was so void
of experience and dissimulation, that she believe