Page:Honest debtor, or, The virtuous man struggling with, rising superior to, and overcoming misfortune (2).pdf/8

8 ly. A select society, formed by her own inclination, shewed her the most flattering attentions, and nothing that could render home agreeable was ever wanting. ' My wife was too young to consider it necessary to regulate and reduce my ex- pences. Ah! had she known how much I risked to please her, with what resolution would she not have opposed it? But as she brought me a handsome fortune, it was natural for her to conclude, that I was also in affluent circumstances. She imagined, at least, that my situation in life allowed me to put my establishment upon a genteel footing, she perceived nothing in it that was unsuitable to my profession; and, on consulting her female friends, all this was highly proper, all this was no more than de- cent. Alas! I said so too, and Adrienne alone, in her modest and sweetly ingenuous manner, asked me if I conceived it necessary to incur such expences to render myself a- miable in her eyes, “ I cannot be sensible," said-she, "to the pains you take to render me happy; but I should be so without all that. You love me and that is enough to excite the envy of these young women. What satisfaction can you find in increasing it, by wishing me to eclipse them? Leave them their advantages, which I shall not envy. Let their frivolity of taste : le whim and vain superfluity be their delight. Love and happiness shall be mine."