acquaintance of the reader.




CHAPTER VI.

AN INTRIGUING TEACHER.

MADAME Du Pont was a woman every way calculated to take the care of
young ladies, had that care entirely devolved on herself; but it was
impossible to attend the education of a numerous school without proper
assistants; and those assistants were not always the kind of people
whose conversation and morals were exactly such as parents of delicacy
and refinement would wish a daughter to copy. Among the teachers
at Madame Du Pont's school, was Mademoiselle La Rue, who added to a
pleasing person and insinuating address, a liberal education and the
manners of a gentlewoman. She was recommended to the school by a lady
whose humanity overstepped the bounds of discretion: for though she
knew Miss La Rue had eloped from a convent with a young officer, and, on
coming to England, had lived with several different men in open defiance
of all moral and religious duties; yet, finding her reduced to the
most abject want, and believing the penitence which she professed to be
sincere, she took her into her own family, and from thence recommended
her to Madame Du Pont, as thinking the situation more suitable for
a woman of her abilities. But Mademoiselle possessed too much of the
spirit of intrigue to remain long without adventures. At church, where
she constantly appeared, her person attracted the attention of a young
man who was upon a visit at a gentleman's seat in the neighbourhood: she
had met him several times clandestinely; and being invited to come out