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212 THE CORAL RING. 
nanimity of character, with warm and impulsive 
feelings, and a capability of every thing high or 
great, she had hitherto lived solely to her own 
amusement, and looked on the whole brilliant 
circle by which she was surrounded, with all its 
various actors, as something got up for her special 
diversion. The idea of influencing any one, for 
better or worse, by any thing she ever said or did, 
had never occurred to her. The crowd of ad- 
mirers of the other sex, who, as a matter of 
course, were always about her, she regarded as so 
many sources of diversion ; but the idea of feeling 
any sympathy with them as human beings, or of 
making use of her power over them for their im- 
provement, was one that had never entered her head. 
Edward Ashton was an old-bachelor cousin of 
Florence's, who, having earned the title of oddity, 
in general society, availed himself of it to exercise 
a turn for telling the truth to the various young 
ladies of his acquaintance, especially to his fair 
cousin Florence. We remark, by the by, that 
these privileged truth tellers are quite a necessary 
of life to young ladies in the full tide of society ; 
and we really think it would be worth while for 
every dozen of them to unite to keep a person of 
this kind on a salary, for the benefit of the whole. 
However, that is nothing to our present purpose. 
We must return to our fair heroine, whom we left, 
at the close of the last conversation, standing in 
deep revery by the window. 
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