 me to enter into a particular defence against a general charge; and therefore suffered every hint upon this subject to pass unnoticed.
We had lived now above a year at Bath, and my mother began to find herself

extremely straitened in her circumstances—You had it not then in your power, my dear and generous Edward, to relieve her distress; and I am certain that one of the severest, which she herself felt, was her not being able to assist you, in the first dawnings of your then infant fortunes.
My mother, though past the prime of life, was still handsome; and, at such a crisis, dress is of much more consequence to a woman, than at an earlier aera; she had been used to elegance and affluence, yet she chearfully resigned them all, and continued to wear deep mourning, in order to ornament me with the remains of her former paraphernalia, and every little addition that she could make to it.

Matilda used to take me with her frequently to the rooms, and generally invited me to private parties, at her own apartments;—sometimes with my mother, but oftener without.—She always played high, and seemed solicitous to possess me with the same passion.—I resisted the temptation, for some time, on account of the danger and indecorum of such a course of life.—To which she replied, that as cards were now become the bon ton of all civilized nations, the latter of my objections was sufficiently obviated; and that, in order to guard against the former, the earlier I began to practise, the better.—For, as I should soon be a person of rank and fortune, by the death of Sir Richard L—, I could not think of living like a housewife, in such an improved and enlightened

age, as the present; and that, as high play had now became the general amusement and occupation of all people intitled to associate in polite life, the sooner I was initiated into the arts and sciences of gaming, the safer it would be for my husband's fortune, or my own.
She would sometimes make me hold her cards, while she sat by, and instructed me how to play them; then she would make me join in the stake, and at last led me in to adventure for myself, on her promise to lend me what money I might lose, till I should be in a condition of repaying her.
I am convinced that there is but one step easy to avoid, in vice, and that is the first.—The fear and disgust with which I

had engaged at
