But what is now spread over a wide surface was—in those days of small centres like Bath and other places of fashionable resort in or near London—pressed within a narrower compass, and thus the evil and its results were more prominently brought forward.
But is not the canker at the root of many a fair flower of womanhood in the higher circles of our own time? Do not maidens and matrons, young and old, of our own day permit, nay, encourage, the discussion of scandal and improprieties in their presence, which by their very discussion tend to stain the pure white flower of maidenhood and motherhood? Is it not true that familiarity with any evil seems to lessen its magnitude, and that continual conversation about matters that are even perhaps condemned, has the effect of making the speaker and hearer less and less guarded in their remarks, and less and less "shocked," as they perhaps at first declared themselves to be, at some sad lapse from the straight path amongst their acquaintances and friends?
It would be distasteful to me, and it would not add to the interest of the story I have to tell, were I to draw a picture true to life of Sir Maxwell Danby. He was an utterly unscrupulous and base man. He had no standard of morality, except the standard of doing what best satisfied his own selfish and low aims. How it was that he had determined to win a woman like Griselda, I cannot say, so utterly different as she was from the many women who had fallen into his power. But the fact remained that he was determined to win her, and if he failed, his love—though I desecrate that word by applying it to any feeling of Sir Maxwell Danby's—would assuredly turn to hatred and determination to do what he could to destroy her happiness.
As Griselda sat that evening with the light of two tall candles in their massive brass candlesticks, shining on her beautiful face, there was no shadow over it.
What if Lady Betty renounced her, and turned her out of the house?—well, if the whole world were against her, she was no longer alone. She was his, who loved her, and was ready at any moment to take her to his heart and home. "I must write to him," she was saying as she stroked her cheek with the soft feather at the end of her quill; "I must write to him and tell him all—everything! and then he will know what to do."
Soon the pen began to move over the paper, and she smiled as she put it through the "sir," which had been written after "dear," and substituted "Leslie."
How strange and yet how sweet it was to look at it! And then she went on:
"I said you must wait till I called you by your name! You have not had to wait long."
She wrote on till she heard a bustle on the pavement below her window. She went to it, and looking down saw the link-boys with their torches and the chair in which Lady Betty was being carried off to the Assembly, and the chair was followed by another, and several dark figures shrouded in long cloaks were in attendance.
It was a clear frosty evening. The sky was studded with countless stars, and the fields and meadows then lying before North Parade, made a blank space of sombre hue where no distant forms of tree or dwelling could be traced; while beyond was the dim outline of the hills, which stand round about that City of the West. Lonely heights then!—now crowned by many stately terraces and houses, where a thousand lamps shine, and define the outline of the crescents and upward-reaching streets and roads. But gas was not known in that winter of 1780! It lay hidden in those strangely-mysterious places, with electricity and the power of steam, waiting to be called out into activity; for those hidden forces are old as the eternal hills, only waiting the magic touch of some master's hand, to be of service to men, who are but slow to recognise whence every good and perfect gift comes.