ngry because I do not whitewash
Caroline, especially as I go along with them altogether in abusing
her husband.

But I must not take up your time by sending you another book,
though it gratifies me to think that I am writing what none but
yourself will read. Do it yourself, like a dear man, and, as you
are great, be merciful. Or rather, as you are a friend, be loving.

Yours gratefully and faithfully,

MATILDA CARBURY.

After all how few women there are who can raise themselves above
the quagmire of what we call love, and make themselves anything
but playthings for men. Of almost all these royal and luxurious
sinners it was the chief sin that in some phase of their lives
they consented to be playthings without being wives. I have
striven so hard to be proper; but when girls read everything, why
should not an old woman write anything?

This letter was addressed to Nicholas Broune, Esq., the editor of the
'Morning Breakfast Table,' a daily newspaper of high character; and,
as it was the longest, so was it considered to be the most important
of the three. Mr Broune was a man powerful in his profession,--and he
was fond of ladies. Lady Carbury in her letter had called herself an
old woman, but she was satisfied to do so by a conviction that no one
else regarded her in that light. Her age shall be no secret to the
reader, though to her most intimate friends, even to Mr Broune, it had
never been divulged. She was forty-three, but carried her years so
well, and had received such gifts from nature, that it was impossible
to deny that she was still a beautiful woman. And she used her beauty
not only to increase her influence,--as is natural to women who are
well-favoured,--but also with a well-considered calculation that she
could obtain material assistance in the procuring of bread and cheese,
which was very necessary to Her, by a prudent adaptation to her
purposes of the good things with which providence had endowed her. She
did not fall in love, she did not wilfully flirt, she did not commit
herself; but she smiled and whispered, and made confidences, and
looked out of her own eyes into men's eyes as though there might be
some mysterious bond between her and them--if only mysterious
circumstances would permit it. But the end of all was to induce some
one to do something which would cause a publisher to give her good
payment for indifferent writing, or an editor to be lenien