Much of our morality (prudent and right upon system) with respect to the first false step of women, leads us, as we all know, into barbarous errors as to individual exceptions.

Where, from pure and confiding love, that first false step has been taken, many a woman has been saved in after life from a thousand temptations.

The poor unfortunates who crowd our streets and theatres have rarely, in the first instances, been corrupted by love; but by poverty, and the contagion of circumstance and example.

It is a miserable cant phrase to call them the victims of seduction; they have been the victims of hunger, of vanity, of curiosity, of evil _female_ counsels; but the seduction of love hardly ever conducts to a _life_ of vice.

If a woman has once really loved, the beloved object makes an impenetrable barrier between her and other men; their advances terrify and revolt--she would rather die than be unfaithful even to a memory.