ersion. It is
true, they were not always entertained; but they always expected to be
so, and promised themselves amends the following day for the
disappointment of the present. If they failed of pleasure, they had
dissipation, and were in too continual a hurry to have time to ask
themselves whether they were amused; if they saw others were so, they
imagined themselves must be equally entertained; or if the dullness of
the place was too great to be overlooked, they charged it on their own
want of spirits, and complained of a languor which rendered them
incapable of receiving pleasure.

Lady Mary fortunately had had no confidante in her design of running
away with Mr Lenman, and the part he had acted was so dishonourable he
could not wish to publish it; her imprudence was therefore known only to
herself; and the fear of disobliging her aunt by letting her intended
disobedience reach her ears induced her to conceal it; otherwise, most
probably, in some unguarded hour, she would have amused her acquaintance
with the relation, embellished with whatever circumstances would have
rendered it amusing; for the love of being entertaining, and the vanity
of being listened to with eagerness, will lead people of ungoverned
vivacity to expose their greatest failings.

Lady Mary's levity encouraged her admirers to conceive hopes which her
real innocence should have repressed. Among this number was Lord Robert
St George. He was both in person and manner extremely pleasing; but what
was a stronger charm to a young woman of Lady Mary's turn of mind, he
was a very fashionable man, much caressed by the ladies, and supposed to
have been successful in his addresses to many. This is always a great
recommendation to the gay and giddy; and a circumstance which should
make a man shunned by every woman of virtue, secures him a favourable
reception from the most fashionable part of our sex.

Lady Mary would have accused herself of want of taste had she not liked
a man whom so many others had loved. She saw his attachment to her in
the light of a triumph over several of her acquaintance; and when a man
raises a woman in her own esteem, it is seldom long before he gains a
considerable share of it for himself. Vanity represented Lord Robert as
a conquest of importance, and his qualifications rendered him a very
pleasing dangler. Lady Mary liked him as well as her little leisure to
attend to one person would permit. She felt that pleasure on his
app