“Her seducer was absent on a journey. She, therefore, wrote him a farewell letter, couched in terms of sincere penitence for her transgression, and determined resolution of amendment in future, and left the house. Thus restored and reconciled to her friends, Myra appeared in quite another character.
“Prudelia tarried with her mother till she had adjusted her affairs, and seen her comfortably settled and provided for. Then taking her reclaimed sister with her, she returned to her anxiously expecting family. The uprightness and modesty of Myra’s conduct, ever after, rendered her universally esteemed, though the painful consciousness of her defection was never extinguished in her own bosom.
“A constant sense of her past misconduct depressed her spirits, and cast a gloom over her mind; yet she was virtuous, though pensive, during the remainder of her life.
“With this, and other salutary effects in view, how necessary, how important are filial and fraternal affection!”
Friday, P. M.
FRIENDSHIP.
“Friendship is a term much insisted on by young people; but, like many others more frequently used than understood. A friend, with girls in general, is an intimate acquaintance, whose taste and pleasures are similar to their own; who will encourage, or at least connive at their foibles and faults, and communicate with them every secret; in particular those of love and gallantry, in which those of the other sex are concerned. By such friends their errors and stratagems are flattered and concealed, while the prudent advice of real friendship is neglected, till they find too late, how fictitious a character, and how vain a dependence they have chosen.
“Augusta and Serena were educated at the same school, resided in the same neighborhood, and were equally volatile in their tempers, and dissipated in their manners. Hence every plan of amusement was concerted and enjoyed together. At the play, the ball, the card-table and every other party of pleasure, they were companions.
“Their parents saw that this intimacy strengthened the follies of each; and strove to disengage their affections, that they might turn their attention to more rational entertainments, and more judicious advisers. But they gloried in their friendship, and thought it a substitute for every other virtue. They were the dupes of adulation, and the votaries of coquetry.
“The attentions of a libertine, instead of putting them on their guard against encroachments, induced them to triumph in their fancied conquests, and to boast of resolution sufficient to shield them from delusion.