Page:The Adventures of David Simple (1904).djvu/147

 imaginations, people may sometimes be led into errors, although their judgments are ever so good; and when persons, who are esteemed by the world to have wit, are guilty of any failing, all the envious (and I am afraid they are too great a part of the human species) set up a general outcry against them." David, into whose head not one envious thought ever entered, could easily comprehend the reasonableness of what Cynthia said, though he was at a loss for examples of such behaviour, but was too well pleased with her manner of talking to interrupt her: and she thus continued her story. "We had a young cousin lived with us, who was the daughter of my father's brother, she was the oddest character I ever knew; for she certainly could not be said to have any understanding, and yet she had one of the strongest signs of sense that could be: for she was so conscious of her defect that way, that it made her so bashful she never spoke but with fear and trembling, lest she should make herself ridiculous. This poor creature would have been made a perfect mope had it not been for me; for she was the only person I ever submitted to flatter. I always approved whatever she said, and never failed asking her opinion, whenever I could contrive to do it without appearing to make a jest of her. This was the highest joy to my sisters, who thought that in this instance, at least, they could prove my want of sense, and their own superiority; for their delight was in making a butt of this poor girl, by rallying, as they pleased to term it, and putting her out of countenance." "Pray, madam," said David, "what is the meaning of making a butt of any one?" Cynthia replied, "It is setting up a person as a mark to be scorned and pointed at for some defect of body or mind, and this without any offence comitted, to