fortunate creature in the world because my son missed of such a good
post as he was to have had in this ship; I was continually fretting
about it and fancied that so bad a setting out was a sign the poor boy
would be unlucky all his life. How different things turn out from what
we expect! Had not this misfortune, as I thought it, happened, he would
now have been at the bottom of the sea, and my poor heart would have
been broken. Well, to be sure God is very kind! I hope my boy will
always be thankful for this providence and love the Lord who has thus
preserved him.'

This poor woman spoke a new language to Lady Mary. She knew, indeed,
that God had made the world, and had sent her into it, but she had never
thought of his taking any further care about her. She had heard that he
had forbidden murder and stealing and adultery and that, after death, he
would judge people for those crimes, and this she supposed was the
utmost extent of his attention. But the joy she felt for her own
deliverance from a misfortune into which she was so near involving
herself, and the resemblance there was in the means of her preservation
to that for which her nurse was so thankful, communicated to her some of
the same sensations, and she felt a gratitude to him who, she imagined,
might possibly be more careful over his creatures than she had ever yet
supposed.

These impressions, though pretty strong at the time, wore off after she
got abroad. A renewal of the same dissipation scattered them with every
other serious thought; and she again entered into the hurry of every
trifling amusement. Mr Lenman, as soon as he found that his marriage was
become public, despairing of the success of his scheme, left the place
before Lady Mary was out of her confinement, afraid of meeting the
reproachful glances of a woman whom he designed to injure; and whose
innocence, notwithstanding her levity, gave her dignity in the eyes of a
man who had really conceived an ardent passion for her.

Lady Sheerness and her niece stayed but a short time at Scarborough
after the latter was perfectly recovered, the season being over. They
returned to London and all the gaiety it affords; and though the town
was at that time not full, yet they had so general an acquaintance, and
Lady Sheerness rendered her house so agreeable, that she never wanted
company. Every season has its different amusements, and these ladies had
an equal taste for everything that bore the name of div