Married women are, on my principles, forbidden fruit; I abhor the seduction of innocence; I am too delicate, and (with all my modesty) too vain, to be pleased with venal beauty: what was I then to do, with a heart too active to be absolutely at rest, and which had not met with it’s its counterpart? Widows were, I thought, fair prey, as being sufficiently experienced to take care of themselves.