Page:The Adventures of David Simple (1904).djvu/174

 what to do. At last, he recollected himself enough to beg her to dry her eyes; saying, it would be the utmost injury to her brother to continue in those agonies, which seeing her in that condition must unavoidably cause. That thought immediately roused her, and suddenly stopped her gushing tears. As soon as she grew a little calm, David's senses began to return to him; and he asked her, if she thought her brother would be able to bear a chair to carry him to some place where he might get what was decent, and be taken care of. He had indeed a chamber below stairs, where everything was clean, though in a very plain way, which he should be very welcome to have; but he supposed they would be willing to move from a place in which they had met with such treatment; besides, there was not room enough for them all; and he would not leave them, till he saw them recovered from the condition they were now in. On which she replied, that, indeed, that last consideration weighed greatly with her; but as to the treatment they had met with, she had learned from sad experience in the world, that good or bad usage was to be had, just according to the situation any person appeared in, and that most people weighed the respect they paid others very exactly in a scale against the money they thought them worth, taking great care not to let the one exceed the other. The brother, who found himself revived, said he was sure he could bear being carried wherever he pleased; and that nothing could make him suffer so much, as the being separated from him. On which David presently went out, got a good lodging for them and himself, returned, and paid the landlady his and their bills (the whole of what she had been so clamorous about, amounting only to two guineas). He could not help reflecting with pleasure, that this woman had been a loser by her cruelty and ill-nature; for he paid