“You have had the politeness to say, there is something in my appearance which speaks my birth above my present situation:  in this, Madam, I am so happy as not to deceive your generous partiality.

“My father, who was an officer of family and merit, had the misfortune to lose my mother whilst I was an infant.

“He had the goodness to take on himself the care of directing my education, and to have me taught whatever he thought becoming my sex, though at an expence much too great for his income.

“As he had little more than his commission, his parental tenderness got so far the better of his love for his profession, that, when I was about fifteen, he determined on quitting the army, in order to provide better for me; but, whilst he was in treaty for this purpose, a fever carried him off in a few days, and left me to the world, with little more than five hundred pounds, which, however, was, by his will, immediately in my power.

“I felt too strongly the loss of this excellent parent to attend to any other consideration; and, before I was enough myself to think what I was to do for a subsistence, a friend of my own age, whom I tenderly loved, who was just returning from school to her father’s, in the north of England, insisted on my accompanying her, and spending some time with her in the country.

“I found in my dear Sophia, all the consolation my grief could receive; and, at her pressing solicitation, and that of her father, who saw his daughter’s happiness depended on having me with her, I continued there three years, blest in the calm delights of friendship, and those blameless pleasures, with which we should be too happy, if the heart could content itself, when a young baronet, whose form was as lovely as his soul was dark, came to interrupt our felicity.

“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.