" said she. "The same will doubtless be felt and expressed by every one to whom my sad story is related. But the cause may be found in that unrestrained levity of disposition, that fondness for dissipation and coquetry, which alienated the affections of Mr. Boyer from me. This event fatally depressed and enfeebled my mind. I embraced with avidity the consoling power of friendship, insnaringly offered by my seducer; vainly inferring, from his marriage with a virtuous woman, that he had seen the error of his ways, and forsaken his licentious practices, as he affirmed, and I, fool that I was, believed it.

"It is needless for me to rehearse the perfidious arts by which he insinuated himself into my affections and gained my confidence. Suffice it to say, he effected his purpose. But not long did I continue in the delusive dream of sensual gratification. I soon awoke to a most poignant sense of his baseness, and of my own crime and misery. I would have fled from him; I would have renounced him forever, and by a life of sincere humility and repentance endeavored to make my peace with Heaven, and to obliterate, by the rectitude of my future conduct, the guilt I had incurred; but I found it too late. My circumstances called for attention; and I had no one to participate my cares, to witness my distress, and to alleviate my sorrows, but him. I could not therefore prevail on myself wholly to renounce his society. At times I have admitted his visits, always meeting him in the garden, or grove adjoining; till, of late, the weather and my ill health induced me to comply with his solicitations, and receive him into the parlor.

"Not long, however, shall I be subject to these embarrassments. Grief has undermined my constitution. My health has fallen a sacrifice to a disordered mind. But I regret not its departure. I have not a single wish to live. Nothing which the world affords can restore my former serenity and happiness.

"The little innocent I bear will quickly disclose its mother's shame. God Almighty grant it may not live as a monument of my guilt, and a partaker of the infamy and sorrow, which is all I have to bequeath it. Should it be continued in life, it will never know the tenderness of a parent; and, perhaps, want and disgrace may be its wretched portion. The greatest consolation I can have will be to carry it with me to a state of eternal rest; which, vile as I am, I hope
