"My Sophia, at a ball, had the misfortune to attract his notice; she was rather handsome, though without regular features; her form was elegant and feminine, and she had an air of youth, of softness, of sensibility, of blushing innocence, which seemed intended to inspire delicate passions alone, and which would have disarmed any mind less depraved than that of the man, who only admired to destroy. "She was the rose-bud yet impervious to the sun. "Her heart was tender, but had never met an object which seemed worthy of it; her sentiments were disinterested, and romantic to excess. "Her father was, at that time, in Holland, whither the death of a relation, who had left him a small estate, had called him: we were alone, unprotected, delivered up to the unhappy inexperience of youth, mistresses of our own conduct; myself, the eldest of the two, but just eighteen, when my Sophia's ill-fate conducted Sir Charles Verville to the ball where she first saw him. "He danced with her, and endeavored to recommend himself by all those little unmeaning, but flattering attentions, by which our credulous sex are so often misled; his manner was tender, yet timid, modest, respectful; his eyes were continually fixed on her, but when he met hers, artfully cast down, as if afraid of offending. "He asked permission to enquire after her health the next day; he came, he was enchanting; polite, lively, soft, insinuating, adorned with every outward grace which could embellish virtue, or hide vice from view, to see and to love him was almost the same thing. "He entreated leave to continue his visits, which he found no difficulty in obtaining: during two months, not a day passed without our seeing him; his behaviour was such as would scarce have alarmed the most suspicious heart; what then could be expected of us, young, sincere, totally ignorant of the world, and strongly prejudiced in favor of a man, whose conversation spoke his soul the abode of every virtue? "Blushing I must own, nothing but the apparent preference he gave to my lovely friend, could have saved my heart from being a prey to the same tenderness which ruined her. "He addressed her with all the specious arts which vice could invent to seduce innocence; his respect, his esteem, seemed equal to his passion; he talked of honor, of the delight of an union where the tender affections alone were consulted; wished for her father's return, to ask her of him in marriage; pretended to count impatiently the hours of his absence, which delayed his happiness: he even prevailed on her to write her father an account of his addresses. "New to love, my Sophia's young heart too easily gave way to the soft impression; she loved, she idolized this most base of mankind; she would have thought it a kind of sacrilege to have had any will in opposition to his.