Page:The Adventures of David Simple (1904).djvu/338



" manner of dealing with these various characters was really very diverting. For to the man of sense who had the reputation of being an artful man, and who always treated her with very great respect, yet told her his love in a plain unaffected manner (for he had not been much used to gallantry), and always dealt with every one with simplicity, she softened her looks to such a degree as gave him some distant hopes that he might be her choice. And as a coquette was the character he most despised, it would have been impossible to have persuaded him that she had any sort of coquetry in her. She plainly saw how much his real character was mistaken; and that the other gentleman, who was reputed to be perfectly artless, employed his whole time and thoughts in endeavouring to undermine her by his cunning. To him therefore she was more reserved; and, by continually counterplotting him, at last gave him the most consummate opinion of her wisdom: for as he looked on art and sense to be the same thing, he thought a woman who could equal him in the former must be the most extraordinary creature in the world.

"The man whom the world esteemed to be ill-natured, only because he was capable of being touched with either the afflictions or behaviour of his friends, she worked backward and forward in such a manner as made him one moment curse her, and the next adore her; by that means keeping his thoughts continually on the stretch, and giving him no time to recollect himself enough to forsake her. The thing in the world he valued in a woman was having the same sensations with himself; therefore, whenever she found she had gone far enough to hurt him thoroughly, she picked up some trifle he had