Sink or Swim? , Volume III by Matilda Charlotte Houstoun

It is unfortunate perhaps, and decidedly suggestive, but so it / undoubtedly is, that beauty leads the wisest amongst us terribly astray / in our judgment both of character and motives. What observer, / dispassionate or otherwise, who looked -- were such a privilege granted to / him -- at lovely Honor's face and form, lying indolently, lazily if you / will, upon her narrow couch (the iron bedstead in the Stanwick-street / lodging), would have been able to allow, without infinite regret and / caution, either that she was _wrong_, or the least in the world / deserving of punishment? A creamy complexion, slightly tinged with the / most delicate of rose-colours; a tumbled mass of fairest brown / hair -- "off the flax and _on_ the golden," as Miss Pratt would say; blue / eyes, "languid with soft dreams; " and full crimson lips, moist with the / morning dew of youth and health, -- composed a sum of attractions very / decidedly calculated to disarm criticism, and to modify the verdict of / "Guilty" with the strongest recommendations to mercy. "Youth" and / "previous good conduct" were pleas which might be safely urged as / extenuating circumstances in the case of poor Honor Beacham's feminine / sin of truth-suppressing; and as with her fair face slightly flushed, / and her long brown eyelashes sparkling with indignant tears, she read, / for the second time, a letter which Lydia (alias Polly), cross and out / of breath with the labour of mounting the attic stairs, had just / deposited on the bed, it was easy to perceive that the process of / retribution had already, in some sort, commenced.

That letter, as the reader will have no difficulty in guessing, was the / one mentioned in the conclusion of the last chapter as the happy result / of old Mrs. Beacham's interference with the connubial relations of her / children. It took the well-meaning woman, as we already know, two hours / in its concoction, and ran as follows: