Page:The Adventures of David Simple (1904).djvu/190

 extravagant enough; buying jewels, going to public places, everything that was to spend the most money, was her chief delight; and the only article in which she ever thought of saving, was in denying my brother and me what we wanted. But this she never did openly; for whatever was proposed for us, she always came very gladly into. The method she took to disappoint us, was, that by her conduct, money soon became very scarce; for she spent all he could procure, and by that means we were obliged to go without it. She would condescend to such mean arts, that had I not been witness of it, I could not have believed any human creature could have been capable of them, I have known her several times bring in bills to my father, where she has set down things for us we never had, in order to make him think she had a great affection for us, that he might esteem her the more; and when to our generosity she owed the success of her schemes, for we neither of us would discover anything to make my father uneasy, she then exulted in the thoughts of her great sense, and applauded her own understanding: for she was wise enough to mistake a low cunning, and such little mean arts, as people who had any understanding could never submit to, for sense. I soon found out that all the softness and tenderness I once imagined her possessed of, was entirely owing to her person; the symmetry and proportion of which gave so pleasing an air to everything she said or did, that nothing but envy could have prevented her beholders from being prejudiced in her favour. "I often thought, could she have beheld herself in the goddess of justice's mirror of truth, as it is described in that beautiful vision in the Tatler, she would have loathed and detested, as much as she now admired, herself. Her fine chestnut-brown