3.  From these men, however, if they are by kind treatment encouraged to talk, something may be gained, which, embelished with elegancy, and softened by modesty, will always add dignity and value to female conversation; and from my acquaintance with the bookish part of the world, I derived many principles of judgment and maxims of prudence, by which I was enabled to draw upon myself the general regard in every place of concourse or pleasure.

4.  My opinion was the great rule of approbation, my remarks were remembered by those who desired the second degree of fame, my mein was studied, my dress imitated, my letters were handed from one family to another, and read by those who copied them as sent to themselves; my visits were solicited as honours, and multitudes boasted of an intimacy with Melissa, who had only seen me by accident, whose familiarity had never proceeded beyond the exchange of a compliment, or return of a courtesy.

5.  I shall make no scruple of confessing that I was pleased with this universal veneration, because I always considered it as paid to my intrinsic qualities and inseparable merit, and very easily persuaded myself, that fortune had no part in my superiority.

6.  When I looked upon my glass, I saw youth and beauty, with health that might give me reason to hope their continuance:  when I examined my mind, I found some strength of judgment and fertility of fancy, and was told that every action was grace, and that every accent was persuasion.

7.  In this manner my life passed like a continual triumph amidst acclamations, and envy, and courtship, and caresses:  to please Melissa was the general ambition, and every stratagem of artful flattery was practised upon me.  To be flattered is grateful, even when we know that our praises are not believed by those who pronounce them:  for they prove at least our power, and shew that our favour is valued, since it is purchased by the meanness of falsehood.

8.  But perhaps the flatterer is not often detected, for an honest mind is not apt to suspect, and no one exerts the power of discernment with much vigour when self-love favours the deceit.

9.  The number of adorers, and the perpetual distraction of my thoughts by new schemes of pleasures, prevented me from listening to any of those who crowd in multitudes to give girls advice, and kept me unmarried and unengaged to my twenty-seventh year, when, as I was towering in all the pride of uncontested excellency, with a face yet little impaired, and a mind hourly improving, the failure of a fund, in which my money was placed, reduced me to a frugal competency, which allowed a little beyond neatness and independence.

10.  I bore the diminution of my riches without any outrages of sorrow, or pusillanimity of dejection.  Indeed I did not know how much I had lost, for having always heard and thought more of my wit and beauty, than of my fortune, it did not suddenly enter my imagination, that Melissa could sink beneath her established rank, while her form and her mind continued the same; that she should cease to raise admiration, but by ceasing to deserve it, or feel any stroke but from the hand of time.