This lord was one of those men who lay it down as a maxim, that a woman who has lost her virtue from fondness to one man, is ever afterwards to be purchased by the best bidder. He had always liked Camilla; but as she lived in a station that he could not think of her on any other terms than marriage, and he knew her father could not give her as much fortune as was necessary to pay off a mortgage which was on his estate, he had never said any tiling to her farther than common gallantry; but when he heard that she was run away in such an infamous manner with her brother, he concluded money would be so acceptable to her, that he could not fail obtaining her by that means. He had often enquired privately after her, but always in vain, till he accidentally saw her at that window.
The moment they were alone, Camilla inquired with great eagerness if he had any thing to say to her from her father, or could tell her any news of him. On which he replied, that all he knew of her father was, that he and his wife lived on in the same house in which she had left them; but his business was of another kind, in which he himself was only concerned. Then, with a heap of those fulsome compliments which only prove the strongest contempt for the person they are made to, he modestly proposed her living with him as mistress; said, she should command his fortune; that he would get her brother a commission in the army to go abroad, and her father should never know by whose interest he had obtained it.
Camilla, whose virtue was not of that outrageous kind which breaks out in a noise like thunder on such occasions, very calmly answered him as follows—"My lord, notwithstanding what you have heard of me, I am as innocent now as when you first knew me; and though malice has contrived to make me infamous, it never shall make me guilty; nor
