Page:The Adventures of David Simple (1904).djvu/204

 was quite of a different kind from that of those brothers, who, by their fathers having more concern for the keeping up the grandeur of their names than for the welfare of their posterity, having got the possession of all the estate of the family, out of mere kindness and good-nature allow their sisters enough out of it to keep them from starving in some hole in the country, where their small subsistence just serves to sustain them the longer in their misery, and prevents them from appearing in the world to disgrace their brother by their poverty. Valentine was afraid to say anything which could anywise be shocking to the person he would never have been ashamed of owning a friendship for, notwithstanding she was a woman, Camilla saw him in perplexity, and begged him to let her know what it was that grieved him; and if it was in her power, by any labour or pains, either to relieve or comfort him, assured him of her assistance. Valentine then made the following reply—"My dear Camilla, I am certain, wants no proof of my sincere affection, and I must confess all my present uneasiness is on your account: the condition I just now found you in, with the confusion in Mr. Simple's looks, raised fears in my breast lest you should be now going to suffer, if possible, more than you have already gone through; for in minds as generous as I know yours to be, the strongest affections are those which are first raised by obligations. I am not naturally suspicious; but the experience I have already had of mankind, and the beauty of your form, with the anxiety I am always in for your welfare, inclines me to fear the worst. You, of all womankind, should be most careful how you enter into any engagements of love; for that softness of disposition, and all that tenderness you are possessed of, will expose you to the utmost misery; and, unless you meet with a man whose temper is like your own, which