Page:The Adventures of David Simple (1904).djvu/153

 he himself is not at all considered in them. I was certain I could live much more to my satisfaction on the interest of my own little fortune, than I could do with subjecting myself to the humours of a man I must have always disliked and despised. "I don't know how it was brought about, but this man married my second sister, and she took the other away with her, so that I was happily rid of them both. My father was very angry with me for the present; but I thought that would be I soon over, and did not at all doubt his being reconciled to me again. I now began to flatter myself, that I should lead a hfe perfectly suitable to my taste; my cousin was very fond of me, for I was the only woman she had ever met with, who had not shown a contempt for her. I carried her with me wherever I went, and had the pleasure of seeing I was the cause of her being happy. I conversed as much as I pleased with my beloved companion, and books and friendship shared my peaceful hours. But this lasted but a very short time; for my father, in the heat of his anger against me, made a will, in which he left me nothing; and before his rage abated enough for him to alter it, he died of an apoplexy. As soon as my sisters heard of his death, they hurried to town, when the will was opened, and they found I was excluded from having any share in my father's fortune: they triumphed over me with all the insolence imaginable, and vented all their usual reproaches; saying, it was impossible but that a person of my great wit and genius must be able to provide for myself, and did not doubt but 1 could shift very well without money. Thus this unpardonable crime of being thought to have more sense than they had, was never to be forgiven; they stayed no longer in town, than while they were settling their affairs, and left me with but five guineas, which I happened to have saved out