Unfortunately for these young females, they had ever been surrounded
by unfavorable circumstances, and exposed to the vices of bad associations;
and that nice discrimination between propriety and politeness, which is a
natural characteristic of the modest woman, had become somewhat
obliterated, and the hold which virtue ever has by nature in the heart of
the gentler sex, had been somewhat loosened. In short, the young Misses
Fleming failed at all times to observe that degree of propriety which
should ever characterize the pure in heart, and were, by many, accused of
immorality. How far this accusation was true, we shall not attempt to say,
but, doubtless, there were not wanting many tongues to spread slanderous
reports.
In early years of womanhood, Eliza had given her affections to one who
sought her love under the guise of a "gentleman of fortune." He proved to
be what such characters usually are--a libertine, whose only motive in
seeking to win her confidence and young affections was to gratify his
hellish passions in the ruin of virtue and a good name. Under the most
solemn assurances of deep, abiding, unalterable love for her, and the most
solemn promises of marriage at an early day, which if he failed to perform,
the direst maledictions of heaven, and the most awful curses, were called
down upon his own head, even to the eternal consuming of his soul in the
flames of perdition, he succeeded in his design.
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