ashes of the dead? Oh no! has she a heart of sensibility, she will stop,
and thus address the unhappy victim of folly--

"Thou had'st thy faults, but sure thy sufferings have expiated them:
thy errors brought thee to an early grave; but thou wert a
fellow-creature--thou hast been unhappy--then be those errors forgotten."

Then, as she stoops to pluck the noxious weed from off the sod, a tear
will fall, and consecrate the spot to Charity.

For ever honoured be the sacred drop of humanity; the angel of mercy
shall record its source, and the soul from whence it sprang shall be
immortal.

My dear Madam, contract not your brow into a frown of disapprobation. I
mean not to extenuate the faults of those unhappy women who fall victims
to guilt and folly; but surely, when we reflect how many errors we are
ourselves subject to, how many secret faults lie hid in the recesses of
our hearts, which we should blush to have brought into open day (and yet
those faults require the lenity and pity of a benevolent judge, or
awful would be our prospect of futurity) I say, my dear Madam, when we
consider this, we surely may pity the faults of others.

Believe me, many an unfortunate female, who has once strayed into the
thorny paths of vice, would gladly return to virtue, was any generous
friend to endeavour to raise and re-assure her; but alas! it cannot be,
you say; the world would deride and scoff. Then let me tell you, Madam,
'tis a very unfeeling world, and does not deserve half the blessings
which a bountiful Providence showers upon it.

Oh, thou benevolent giver of all good! how shall we erring mortals
dare to look up to thy mercy in the great day of retribution, if we now
uncharitably refuse to overlook the errors, or alleviate the miseries,
of our fellow-creatures.

CHAPTER XIX.

A MISTAKE DISCOVERED.

JULIA Franklin was the only child of a man of large property, who, at
the age of eighteen, left her independent mistress of an unincumbered
income of seven hundred a year; she was a girl of a lively disposition,
and humane, susceptible heart: she resided in New-York with an uncle,
who loved her too well, and had too high an opinion of her prudence, to
scrutinize her actions so much as would have been necessary with many
young ladies, who were not blest with her discretion: she was, at the
time Montraville arrived at New-York, the life of society, and the
universal toast. Montraville was introduced to her by the follo