e held her
head high, never was pride more peevishly retorted. Like the
performers in a pillory, we seemed to have been elevated only for the
benefit of a general pelting.

These were the women's share of the mischief; but I was not long without
administering in person to our unpopularity. The report of my fortune
had, as usual, been enormously exaggerated; and every man who had a debt
to pay, or a purchase to make, conceived himself "bound to apply first
to his old and excellent friend, to whom the accommodation for a month
or two must be such a trifle." If I had listened to a tenth of those
compliments, "their old and excellent friend" would have only preceded
them to a jail. In some instances I complied, and so far only showed my
folly; for who loves his creditor? My refusal of course increased the
host of my enemies; and I was pronounced purse-proud, beggarly, and
unworthy of the notice of the "true gentlemen, who knew how to spend
their money."

Yet, though I was to be thus abandoned by my fox-hunting friends, I was
by no means to feel myself the inhabitant of a solitary world. If the
sudden discovery of kindred could cheer me under my calamities, no man
might have passed a gayer life. For a long succession of years I had not
seen a single relative. Not that they altogether disdained even the
humble hospitalities of my cottage, or the humble help of my purse; on
the contrary, they liked both exceedingly, and would have exhibited
their affection in enjoying them as often as I pleased.

But I had early adopted a resolution, which I recommend to all men. I
made use of no disguise on the subject of our mutual tendencies. I knew
them to be selfish, beggarly in the midst of wealth, and artificial in
the fulness of protestation. I disdained to play the farce of civility
with them. I neither kissed nor quarrelled with them; but I quietly shut
my door, and at last allowed no foot of their generation inside it. They
hated me mortally in consequence, and I knew it. I despised them, and
I conclude they knew that too. But I was resolved that they should not
despise me; and I secured that point by not suffering them to feel that
they had made me their dupe. The nabob's will had not soothed their
tempers; and I was honoured with their most smiling animosity.

But now, as if they were hidden in the ground like weeds only waiting
for the shower, a new and boundless crop of relationship sprang up.
Within the first fortnight afte