plete her
nineteenth year, before she met with any address of consequence; one half
of her admirers being afraid, because of her gay turn, and but middling
fortune, to make serious applications for her favour; while others were
kept at a distance, by the superior airs she assumed; and a third sort,
not sufficiently penetrating the foibles either of mother or daughter,
were kept off by the supposed watchful care of the former.

But when the man of intrepidity and intrigue was found, never was heroine
so soon subdued, never goddess so easily stript of her celestials! For,
at the opera, a diversion at which neither she nor her mother ever missed
to be present, she beheld the specious Lovelace--beheld him invested with
all the airs of heroic insult, resenting a slight affront offered to his
Sally Martin by two gentlemen who had known her in her more hopeful
state, one of whom Mr. Lovelace obliged to sneak away with a broken head,
given with the pummel of his sword, the other with a bloody nose; neither
of them well supporting that readiness of offence, which, it seems, was a
part of their known character to be guilty of.

The gallantry of this action drawing every by-stander on the side of the
hero, O the brave man! cried Polly Horton, aloud, to her mother, in a
kind of rapture, How needful the protection of the brave to the fair!
with a softness in her voice, which she had taught herself, to suit her
fancied high condition of life.

A speech so much in his favour, could not but take the notice of a man
who was but too sensible of the advantages which his fine person, and
noble air, gave him over the gentler hearts, who was always watching
every female eye, and who had his ear continually turned to every
affected voice; for that was one of his indications of a proper subject
to be attempted--Affectation of every sort, he used to say, is a certain
sign of a wrong turned head; of a faulty judgment; and upon such a basis
I seldom build in vain.

He instantly resolved to be acquainted with a young creature, who seemed
so strongly prejudiced in his favour. Never man had a readier invention
for all sorts of mischief. He gave his Sally her cue. He called her
sister in their hearing; and Sally, whisperingly, gave the young lady and
her mother, in her own way, the particulars of the affront she had
received; making herself an angel of light, to cast the brighter ray upon
the character of her heroic brother. She particularly