herself with the few instances (comcommon ones, of girls much inferior to herself in station, talents, education, and even fortune, who had succeeded—­as she doubted not to succeed.  Handsome settlements, and a chariot, that tempting gewgaw to the vanity of the middling class of females, were the least that she proposed to herself.  But all this while, neither her parents nor herself considered that she had appetites indulged to struggle with, and a turn of education given her, as well as a warm constitution, unguarded by sound principles, and unbenefitted by example, which made her much better qualified for a mistress than a wife.

Her twentieth year, to her own equal wonder and regret, passed over her head, and she had not one offer that her pride would permit her to accept of.  A girl from fifteen to eighteen, her beauty then beginning to blossom, will, as a new thing, attract the eyes of men:  but if she make her face cheap at public places, she will find, that new faces will draw more attention than fine faces constantly seen.  Policy, therefore, if nothing else were considered, would induce a young beauty, if she could tame her vanity, just to show herself, and to be talked of, and then withdrawing, as if from discretion, (and discreet it will be to do so,) expect to be sought after, rather than to be thought to seek for; only reviving now-and-then the memory of herself, at the public places in turn, if she find herself likely to be forgotten; and then she will be new again.  But this observation ought young ladies always to have in their heads, that they can hardly ever expect to gratify their vanity, and at the same time gain the admiration of men worthy of making partners for life.  They may, in short, have many admirers at public places, but not one lover.

Sally Martin knew nothing of this doctrine.  Her beauty was in its bloom, and yet she found herself neglected.  ’Sally Martin, the mercer’s daughter:  she never fails being here;’ was the answer, and the accompanying observation, made to every questioner, Who is that lady?

At last, her destiny approached.  It was at a masquerade that she first saw the gay, the handsome Lovelace, who was just returned from his travels.  She was immediately struck with his figure, and with the brilliant things that she heard fall from his lips as he happened to sit near her.  He, who was not then looking out for a wife, was taken with Sally’s smartness, and with an air that at the same time showed her to be equally genteel and self-significant; and signs of approbation mutually passing, he found no difficulty in acquainting himself where to visit her next day.  And yet it was some mortification to a person of her self-consequence, and gay appearance, to submit to be known by so fine a young gentleman as no more than a mercer’s daughter.  So natural is it for a girl brought up as Sally was, to be occasionally ashamed of those whose folly had set her above herself.