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a letter of thanks, enclosing a five-pound bank-note, which, no doubt, proved highly acceptable. I also from time to time assisted my aged mother, whose circumstances were extremely narrow, and her support derived solely from the earnings of my two sisters, whose success depending on the caprice of fashion and of milliners, both alike inconstant, was but precarious. They, as well as my other relations in Sshire, were indeed totally ignorant of my unhappy relapse into a life of infamy, but believed my assertion, that I had a liberal salary from Mr. Belt, and was still employed under that gentleman in the Crown-office.
About three months after my return to London, and whilst in the zenith of my success, I was introduced by one of my former dissolute companions to the acquaintance of a young woman, who, like myself, had been well and tenderly brought up, but having been seduced by a young man equally inexperienced with herself, to quit her friends and cohabit with him as his wife, she had thereby forfeited the countenance of her family, and her paramour having died after a year's cohabitation, she had been driven to the usual refuge in such cases, a life of prostitution. At the period of my introduction, however, she had been only a few months upon the town, and I clearly perceived that her mind was yet but very slightly contaminated. As there were many reasons which rendered a female companion in whom
