Never was it so necessary for a young maiden, possessed of beauty like yours, to act with discretion.

Never was a court so licentious as that of our sovereign, Charles the Second, whose corrupt example is imitated by every one around him, while its baneful influence extends to all classes.

Were I to echo the language of the preachers, I should say it was owing to the wickedness and immorality of the times that this dreadful judgment of the plague has been inflicted upon us; but I merely bring it forward as an argument to prove to you, Amabel, that if you would escape the moral contagion by which you are threatened, you must put the strictest guard upon your conduct." Amabel faintly murmured her thanks.
"You speak as my husband himself would have spoken," said Mrs.Bloundel.
"Ah! we little thought, when we prayed that the pestilence might be averted from us, that a worse calamity was behind, and that one of the most profligate of the courtiers you have mentioned would find his way to our house." "One of the most profligate of them ?" cried Hodges.

"Who, in Heaven's name ?" "He calls himself Maurice Wyvil," replied Mrs.Bloundel.
"I never heard of such a person," rejoined the doctor.

"It must be an assumed name.