to introduce two different conversations into different companies."

"Well, but," said Lady Arthur, "since you seem to have been so hard
put to it, as _single_ men, what's to be done with the married man who
ruins an innocent body?--What punishment, Lady Towers, shall we find
out for such an one; and what reparation to the injured?" This
was said with a particular view to the earl, on a late scandalous
occasion; as I afterwards found.

"As to the punishment of the gentleman," replied Lady Towers, "where
the law is not provided for it, it must be left, I believe, to his
conscience. It will then one day be heavy enough. But as to the
reparation to the woman, so far as it can be made, it will be
determinable as the unhappy person _may_ or may _not_ know, that her
seducer is a married man: if she knows he is, I think she neither
deserves redress nor pity, though it elevate not _his_ guilt. But if
the case be otherwise, and _she_ had no means of informing herself
that he was married, and he promised to make her his wife, to be
sure, though _she_ cannot be acquitted, _he_ deserves the severest
punishment that can be inflicted.--What say you, Mrs. B.?"

"If I must speak, I think that since custom now exacts so little
regard to virtue from men, and so much from women, and since the
designs of the former upon the latter are so flagrantly avowed and
known, the poor creature, who suffers herself to be seduced, either by
a _single_ or _married_ man, _with_ promises, or _without_, has only
to sequester herself from the world, and devote the rest of her days
to penitence and obscurity. As to the gentleman," added I, "he must,
I doubt, be left to his conscience, as you say, Lady Towers, which he
will one day have enough to do to pacify."

"Every young lady has not your angelic perfection, Madam," said Mr.
Dormer. "And there are cases in which the fair sex deserve compassion,
ours execration. Love may insensibly steal upon a soft heart; when
once admitted, the oaths, vows, and protestations of the favoured
object, who declaims against the deceivers of his sex, confirm her
good opinion of him, till having lull'd asleep her vigilance, in an
unguarded hour he takes advantage of her unsuspecting innocence. Is
not such a poor creature to be pitied? And what punishment does not
such a seducer deserve?"

"You have put, Sir," said I, "a moving case, and in a generous manner.
What, indeed, does not such a deceiver deserve?"--"And the more,