on a long morning-gown which
Lady Betty had discarded because the colour was unbecoming; and then,
opening her desk, chose a very smooth sheet of Bath-post paper, and sat
with her quill pen in her hand as if uncertain what to write.

But her face was by no means troubled and anxious; on the contrary, it
was happy, almost radiant, in its expression.

Griselda had not had an experience of many lovers; indeed, the sweet
story had never been told to her till Leslie Travers told it; and there
was a charm for her in thinking that her heart had responded so fully to
him and given him her first love.

Foolish protestations like Sir Maxwell Danby's had indeed been made to
Griselda since her arrival at Bath, but a certain stately dignity had
kept triflers at a distance, and it might be said of Griselda, that she

"Held a lily in her hand--
Gates of brass could not withstand
One touch of that enchanted wand."

It was the lily of pure unsullied womanly delicacy, which contact with
the world of fashion in every town is too apt to touch, and even wither
with its baleful breath.

It would not be fair to say that in the Bath assemblies this baleful
influence was all-pervading. Then, as now, there were many who, by their
own guilelessness and purity, repelled the approach of what was harmful
in word or jest.

But what is now spread over a wide surface was--in those days of small
centres like Bath and other places of fashionable resort in or near
London--pressed within a narrower compass, and thus the evil and its
results were more prominently brought forward.

But is not the canker at the root of many a fair flower of womanhood in
the higher circles of our own time? Do not maidens and matrons, young
and old, of our own day permit, nay, encourage, the discussion of
scandal and improprieties in their presence, which by their very
discussion tend to stain the pure white flower of maidenhood and
motherhood? Is it not true that familiarity with any evil seems to
lessen its magnitude, and that continual conversation about matters that
are even perhaps condemned, has the effect of making the speaker and
hearer less and less guarded in their remarks, and less and less
"shocked," as they perhaps at first declared themselves to be, at some
sad lapse from the straight path amongst their acquaintances and
friends?

It would be distasteful to me, and it would not add to the interest of
the story I have to tell, were I to draw