Conversing with some ladies on this subject last night, they asserted that the infrequency of elopements in France proved the superiority of morals of the French, and that few examples ever occurred of a woman being so lost to virtue as to desert her children and abandon her home. "But if she should have rendered herself unworthy of any longer being the companion of her children, the partner of her home," asked one of the circle, "would it be more moral to remain under the roof she had dishonoured, and with the husband she had betrayed, than to fly, and so incur the penalty she had drawn on her head?" They were of opinion that the elopement was the most criminal part of the affair, and that Lady ---- was less culpable than many other ladies, because she had not fled; and, consequently, that elopements proved a greater demoralisation than the sinful _liaisons_ carried on without them. Lady C---- endeavoured to prove that the flight frequently originated in a latent sense of honour and shame, which rendered the presence of the deceived husband and innocent children insufferable to her whose indulgence of a guilty passion had caused her to forfeit her right to the conjugal home; but they could not comprehend this, and persisted in thinking the woman who fled with her lover more guilty than her who remained under the roof of the husband she deceived. One thing is quite clear, which is, that the woman who feels she dare not meet her wronged husband and children, if she dishonours them, will be more deterred from sin by the consciousness of the necessity of flight, which it imposes, than will be the one who sees no such necessity, and who dreads not the penalty she may be tempted to incur. Lady C---- maintained that elopements are not a fair criterion for judging of the morality of a country; for that she who sins and flies is less hardened in guilt than she who remains and deceives: and the example is also less pernicious, as the one who has forfeited her place in society serves as a beacon to warn others; while she whose errors are known, yet still retains hers, is a dangerous instance of the indulgence afforded to hardened duplicity. It is not the horror of guilt, but the dread of its exposure, that operates on the generality of minds; and this is not always sufficient to deter from sin.