Page:ThePrincessofCleves.djvu/266

254 man. No, certainly, replied Miramillia, (with a half smile, now plainly perceiving the cause of her disquiet) not through all, I dare say; you have your admirers, who confess your power of charming.—Coxcombs! wretches all! resumed the fair votary of envy, what avails their pretending a passion for me, when they do nothing to attest it to the world? Oh, Miramillia! a woman gains more glory to have one man die for her, than to have a thousand live and languish at her feet. It was not alll Charino could say or swear, that set up the fame of Ismenia; but in that one action, his death, he has recorded the force of her charms to all posterity. Heavens! how fortunate some women are, and how much the contrary others! Notwithstanding my great estate, allowed, good qualities, and birth, I pass for nothing in the esteem of the world, am unregarded, slighted; and yet, without my glass extremely deceives me, she is far from having the pre-eminence over me, either in face or shape. Good God! how is it possible to be contented under such visible partiality? She had not, perhaps, given over her exclamations for a much longer time, had the torrent of her tears allowed the power of farther speech: nor could Miramillia offer any thing to interrupt her, so greatly was she amazed that a woman, endued with good sense in other things, should so much suffer it to be debased by her excessive vanity and desire of admiration. But perceiving she had left off speaking, she could not forbear mixing some grave reproofs with her consolations; she begged her to consider how little essential to true happiness was the being accounted beautiful, and how much better it was to be sincerely loved by one worthy man, than to have the noisy encomiums of the whole sex; and at the same time reminded her, that nothing was more an argument of a mean and ungenerous soul than to envy another, either for real or imaginary perfections. But how little effect such kind of discourses were able to work on her, any one, who in the course of their life has met with a