In Chapter 21 of Emily of New Moon, Emily confesses her sins one wakeful, conscience-stricken night to Aunt Elizabeth:

“Aunt Elizabeth, you remember that book I found in Dr Burnley’s bookcase and brought home and asked you if I could read it? It was called The History of Henry Esmond. You looked at it and said you had no objections to my reading history. So I read it. But, Aunt Elizabeth, it wasn’t history–it was a novel. And I knew it when I brought it home.”

“You know that I have forbidden you to read novels, Emily Starr. They are wicked books and have ruined many souls.”

“It was very dull,” pleaded Emily, as if dullness and wickedness were quite incompatible. “And it made me feel unhappy. Everybody seemed to be in love with the wrong person. I have made up my mind, Aunt Elizabeth, that I will never fall in love. It makes too much trouble.”

The History of Henry Esmond
By William Makepeace Thackeray

The History of Henry Esmond at Project Gutenberg.