Page:The Adventures of David Simple (1904).djvu/74

 pomp and splendour, made Miss Nanny resolve she would not be outdone in grandeur: she therefore consented to give her hand to Mr. Nokes, and as he was ready to take her, it was soon concluded; and she now no longer made any difficulty of preferring gaiety and show to everything in the world. She thought herself ill-used by Mr. Simple, (not knowing the true cause of his leaving her in that abrupt manner;) so that her pride helped her to overcome any remains of passion, and she fancied herself in the possession of everything which could give happiness, namely, splendid equipages and glittering pomp. But she soon found herself greatly mistaken; her fine house, by constantly living in it, became as insipid as if it had been a cottage: a short time took away all the giddy pleasure which attends the first satisfaction of vanity. Her husband, who was old, soon became full of diseases and infirmities, which turned his temper (naturally not very good) into moroseness and ill-nature: and as he had married a woman whom he thought very much obliged to him, on account of his superiority of fortune, he was convinced it was but reasonable she should comply with his peevish humours; so that she had not lived long with him, before the only comfort she had was in the hopes of outliving him.

She certainly would soon have broke her heart, had she known that all this misery, and the loss of the greatest happiness, in being tenderly used by a man of sense, who loved her, was her own fault; but, as she thought it his inconstancy, to his generosity in not telling her the truth, she owed the avoiding that painful reflection. The uneasy state of her mind made her peevish and cross to all around her; and she never had the pleasure of enjoying that fortune, which she had been so desirous of obtaining: her husband, notwithstanding his old age, died of