- dence. The following winter we often
visited. She confessed to me, it was impossible at once to leave off her former acquaintances; and appealed to me if it would not be better to effect her intended change gradually, and so ultimately please herself without disgusting those, to gratify whom she had sometimes engaged in amusements, of which SHE HERSELF TOTALLY DISAPPROVED. Her plan I thought perfectly reasonable; but warned her against contracting a fondness for such pursuits. 'Believe me,' said the countess, 'there is no danger of that: the more I see of gaming and its consequences, the more do I hold it in detestation, and the more firmly am I resolved to keep out of its destructive vortex. Indeed, I know of no more effectual means of producing an abhorrence of that vice, than by frequenting scenes in which it is practised. On a weak mind,
