Page:The Adventures of David Simple (1904).djvu/80

 always preferred all the power in in his own hands, they had been used implicitly to obey his commands, and wait on him; and as to their grief at his death, there is to most people a terror and melancholy in death itself, which strikes them with horror at the sight of it: and it being usual for families to cry and mourn for their relations till they are buried, there is such a prevalency in custom, that it is not uncommon to see a whole house in tears for the death of those very people they have hated and abused while living, though their grief ceases with their funerals. But these three sisters had an inveterate hatred to each other; for the eldest being much older than the others, had, during their childhood, usurped so unreasonable an authority over them, as they could never forgive; and as they were handsomer when they grew up than she was, they were more liked by the rest of the world, and consequently more disliked and hated by her. The other two, as they were nearer of an age, in all appearance might have agreed better; but they had met with one of those fine gentlemen who make love to every woman they chance to be in company with. Each of these two sisters fancied he was in love with her; they therefore grew jealous rivals, and never after could endure one another: yet notwithstanding all this, I make no doubt, but on the death of either, the others could have performed the ceremony of crying with as good a grace as if they had loved one another ever so well. Nay, and what is yet more surprising, this grief might not have been altogether affectation; for when any person is in so low a state of body, mind, or fortune, as makes it impossible for them to be the objects of envy, if there is the least grain of compassion or good-nature in the human mind, it has full power to exert itself, and the thought of being about for ever to lose anybody we are used to converse with, like a charm, suddenly banishes