apless fair one from the errors which ruined poor Charlotte" (6). In the eyes of moralists, Charlotte's greatest error is having sex before marriage. However, the way Rowson has written the story, Charlotte's ruin is caused more by being too trusting and too eager to try to please people. Had she been more skeptical and more certain of herself, she would never have become the central figure in a popular novel.
The book begins, not with Charlotte, but with the two men who will become the instruments of her destruction. Montraville and Belcour are officers in the British army, preparing to leave for the fight in America. On a whim after dinner, they decide to take a stroll around Chichester, and there Montraville catches a glimpse of a young lady he danced with once at a ball two years earlier. This, of course, is Charlotte, age 15. He becomes infatuated with her instantly.
The whole story begins on a random chance. If the two men had decided to continue their journey instead
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