But, for Heaven's sake, what could induce you to desire a continuation of a correspondence with me? What did you take me for? Did you imagine me so blind as not to see into the shameful means by which you are supported, or so weak as to forfeit all the reputation and respect I have in the world, merely to comply with your request? No! your conduct is too bare-faced to give me even the shadow of an excuse for ever seeing you again: do not, therefore, go about to varnish over actions, whose foulness will appear through all the colours you can daub them with. The friendship I once had for you has already pleaded all that yourself could urge in your defence; but the cause is too bad, and I must leave you to the miseries which attend remorse, and which a little time will infallibly bring on. Heavens! to be a common prostitute! to earn precarious bread, by being the slave of every man's licentious will. What is digging in the mines! What is begging! What is starving, when compared to this! But the idea is too shocking; modesty shudders at it. I shall drive both that and you as distant from my thoughts as possible; so, be assured, this is the last time you will ever hear from the much deceived, and ill-treated, B. THOUGHTLESS.' She was going to seal up the above letter, when a sudden thought coming into her head, she added, to what she had already wrote, this postscript. 'P.S. You may perhaps be instigated to answer this, either through resentment for the reproaches it contains, or through some remains of modesty, to attempt an apology for the occasion: but I would not wish you should give yourself that trouble; for, be assured, I shall read nothing that comes from you, and that whatever you send will be returned to you again unopened.' She immediately sent this away by a porter; and, having satisfied the dictates of her indignation against Miss Forward, she had now done with her, and resolved to think of her no more; yet was the confusion of her mind far from being dissipated. 'What will Mr. Trueworth say,' cried she to herself, 'if ever the ridiculous adventure of last night should reach his ears, as nothing is more probable than that it may? What will my brother Frank say, on hearing such a story? What will Mr. Goodman and Lady Mellasin say? What a triumph for the envious Miss Flora! And what can I answer for myself, either to my friends or enemies?' Little care as this young lady had seemed to have taken of her reputation, it was, notwithstanding, very dear to her. Honour was yet still more dear; and she could not reflect, that what she had done might call the one into question, and how near she had been to having the other irrecoverably lost, without feeling the most bitter agonies: she was not able to dress, or go down stairs that day; and gave orders to be denied to whoever should come to visit her.