Page:The Adventures of David Simple (1904).djvu/326

 but she should make a good husband of him; and used often to say, that as she did not value having many admirers, she did not fear but an honest plain behaviour would fix the affections of one worthy man. But if her sister was in the right, and no man was to be dealt with but by using art and playing tricks, she could content herself very well to live all her lifetime a single woman; for she thought the love of a man which was to be kept that way was not worth having. Nay, she resolved to make that trial of a man's goodness that, whenever she liked him, she would tell him of it; and if he grew cold upon it, she should think she was happily delivered of such a lover. Corinna laughed, and told her she might tell a man she liked him, provided she would but now and then be cold enough to him to give him a small suspicion and fear of losing her. "Sacharissa was as much talked of for her beauty, by those who had only seen them in public, as her sister; but amongst the men who visited them Corinna had almost all the lovers. She had six in a set of English gentlemen, who generally kept together the whole time they were at Paris; whose characters, as every two of them were a perfect contrast to each other, I will give you before I go any further. "The gentleman whose character I shall begin with had the reputation, amongst all his acquaintance, of being the most artful man alive; he had very good sense, and talked with great judgment on every subject he happened to fall upon, but he had not learned that most useful lesson of reducing his knowledge to practice; and whilst everybody was suspecting him, and guarding against those very deep designs they fancied he was forming, he, who in reality was very credulous, constantly fell into the snares of people who had not half his understanding. He could not do the most indifferent action, but all the wise heads, who fancy they prove