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24 vice, ensnaring the inexperienced by her art, and fascinating the most wary by her beauty and her talents. The charms of her person and the endowments of her mind were worthy of a better fate than that which she was preparing for herself. But, under the semblance of youthful gaiety, she concealed a dark intriguing spirit, which could neither remain at rest, nor satisfy itself in the pursuit of great and noble objects. She had been hurried on by the evil activity of her own mind, until the habit of crime had overcome every scruple, and rendered her insensible to repentance, and almost to remorse. In this career, she had improved to such a degree her natural talent of dissimulation, that, under its impenetrable veil, she was able to carry on securely her darkest machinations; and her understanding had so adapted itself to her passions, that it was in her power to give, in her own eyes, a character of grandeur, to the vice and malignity, which afforded