Page:The Adventures of David Simple (1904).djvu/73

 taken up again with Mr. Simple's leaving her. She told her father, nothing but his returning could make her happy, and she could not think how she had lost him; for she never told him she would prefer the other to him: though, indeed, she was very wavering in her own mind, yet she had not expressed it to him, and his indifference was what she could not bear. If he had but sighed, and been miserable for the loss of her, she could have married her old man without any great reluctance: but the thought that he had left her first was insupportable! At this rate did she run on for some time. Mr. Johnson, who in his youth had been very well acquainted with women's ways, and knew the ebbs and flows of their passions, was very well satisfied that as there was a great mixture of vanity in the sorrow she expressed for the loss of her lover, the greater vanity would in the end conquer the less, and he should bring her to act for her own and his interest: he therefore left her, to go and follow his own affairs, and made no doubt of everything succeeding according to his wish. She spent some time in the deepest melancholy, and felt all the misery which attends a woman who has many things to wish, but knows not positively which she wishes most. Sometimes her imagination would represent Mr. Simple with all the softness of a lover, and then the love she had had for him would melt her into tenderness; then in a moment his indifference and neglect came into her head, her pride was piqued, and she was all rage and indignation; then succeeded in her thoughts the old man and his money: so that love, rage, and vanity, were in the greatest contention which should possess the largest share of her inclinations. It cannot be determined how long this agitation of mind would have lasted, had not her sister's marriage with the rich Jew put end to it; which being celebrated with great