'
It is due to Nash to state that he made many attempts to put an end to
the perpetual system of scandal, which from some hidden cause seems
always to be connected with mineral springs; but as he did not banish
the old maids, of course he failed. Of the young ladies and their
reputation he took a kind of paternal care, and in that day they seem to
have needed it, for even at nineteen, those who had any money to lose,
staked it at the tables with as much gusto as the wrinkled, puckered,
greedy-eyed 'single woman,' of a certain or uncertain age. Nash
protected and cautioned them, and even gave them the advantage of his
own unlimited experience. Witness, for instance, the care he took of
'Miss Sylvia,' a lovely heiress who brought her face and her fortune to
enslave some and enrich others of the loungers of Bath. She had a
terrible love of hazard, and very little prudence, so that Nash's good
offices were much needed in the case. The young lady soon became the
standing toast at all the clubs and suppers, and lovers of her, or her
ducats, crowded round her; but though at that time she might have made a
brilliant match, she chose, as young women will do, to fix her
affections upon one of the worst men in Bath, who, naturally enough, did
not return them.
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