Fifteen years ago I was married to a very amiable and worthy man, and highly esteemed and respected. Heaven can witness I long loved him dearly, and still regard him as much as ever! During the first ten years of our union, although we spent the winter in town, and mingled with people of our own rank, our pleasures were principally domestic; our parties were select and elegant, and not indiscriminate and numerous. We occasionally attended at operas, routs, and other fashionable amusements; but did not place our chief enjoyment, in such scenes of glare, noise, and insipidity; for insipid I then thought them. Would to Heaven my sentiments had always continued the same! About six years ago, in an evil day, I became acquainted with the Countess of Cheatwell. Her ladyship’s manners are very insinuating towards those whom she wishes to win. Our acquaintance commenced at Buxton, where, she declared, the retirement of the place was much more agreeable to her than the gaieties of Brighton, or even Bath itself; and that though she was obliged, on account of some friends and connections, to be frequently in great and numerous parties, for her own part, her chief delight was selections of friends, sociable and rational conversation. She had heard, she said, of our wise mode of enjoying society, and was eager to be able, by detaching herself from many of her present acquaintances, to imitate so laudable an example: in short, she won my friendship and confidence. 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, to be sure, they may have a contrary tendency; but, on a vigorous understanding, with a firm, self-possessing heart, their effects are most certainly beneficial. You yourself, my dear, whose mind surpasses in strength that of most ladies, by occasionally witnessing such fashionable amusements, (as they are called, very improperly, I admit,) would be, if possible, more riveted in your aversion.’ In the course of our intimacy, I was prevailed on to be present at some of her ladyship’s routs; and, though she and I in private concurred in expressing our reprobation of gaming, I did not find my aversion by any means increase, and was indeed so delighted