Page:The Naval Officer (1829), vol. 3.djvu/206

 virtuous woman, 'all, for the polluted smiles of an——"

"Hold! hold! my Eugenia," said I; "do not, I beseech you, shock my ears with an epithet which you do not deserve! Mine, mine, is all the guilt; forget me, and you will still be happy."

She looked at me, then at her sweet boy, who was playing on the carpet—but she made no answer; and then a flood of tears succeeded.

It was, indeed, a case of singular calamity, for a beautiful young creature to be placed in. She was only in her three-and-twentieth year—and, lovely as she was, nature had scarcely had time to finish the picture. The regrets which subdued my mind on that fatal morning, may only be conceived by those who, like me, have led a licentious life—have, for a time, buried all moral and religious feeling, and have been suddenly called to a full sense of their guilt, and the misery they have entailed on the innocent. I sat