So the maiden aunts in your neighbourhood think Miss Williams no better than she should be?
Either somebody has said, or the idea is my own; after all, I believe it Shenstone’s, That those are generally the best people, whose characters have been most injured by slanderers, as we usually find that the best fruit which the birds have been pecking at.
I will, however, allow appearances were a little against your cottager; and I would forgive the good old virgins, if they had always as suspicious circumstances to determine from.
But they generally condemn from trifling indiscretions, and settle the characters of their own sex from their conduct at a time of life when they are themselves no judges of its propriety; they pass sentence on them for small errors, when it is an amazing proof of prudence not to commit great ones.
For my own part, I think those who never have been guilty of any indiscretion, are generally people who have very little active virtue.
The waving line holds in moral as well as in corporeal beauty.
Adieu!
Yours ever,
A. Fitzgerald.
All I can say is, that if imprudence is a sin, heaven help your poor little Bell!
On those principles, Sir George is the most virtuous man in the world; to which assertion, I believe, you will enter a caveat.