to prevail, would have been exceedingly mortifying. The young lady
was certainly a beautiful lady: was modest too, and well bred. I had
seen nothing to impeach her virtue: on the contrary, it had been the
principal topic of our discourse. 'Tis true I had, as became me,
been too respectful to put her chastity to any proof. I was not so
discourteous a knight.

But then, that she should have been so intimate as she appeared to be
with those gentlemen sharpers, that she should be going the same road,
that she should lose her purse in so odd a manner, and that she should
accept my ten guineas, were circumstances that dwelt irksomely upon
my mind. Yet it was totally improbable that so sweet a young creature
should be trammeled in vice. What! be the companion of such men,
relate a string of falsehoods, give a forged draft on a banker, and
even shed tears at distress which, if it were not real, was a most
base and odious artifice? That she could act so cunning and so vile
a part, and I not detect her, was wholly incredible. I was very
unwilling to imagine I could be so imposed upon, so duped. _A raw
traveller_? If so, raw indeed! Of all suppositions, that was the most
humiliating. I endeavoured but in vain to banish suspicion. In fine,
whatever might be the cause, which I could not very well develope, I
found the soliloquies of the morning by no means so fascinating as the
visions of the preceding evening.

Wearied of this subject, I turned my thoughts into a new channel, and
endeavoured to conjecture what Oxford was, and what kind of people
were its inhabitants. I had heard it described, and remembered the
leading features; its expansive streets, aspiring turrets, noble
buildings, and delightful walks. The picture rose to magnificence; but
the wisdom learning and virtue of its sages, and their pupils, were