ly increased in longitude from that day.

CHAPTER L

I long to be revenged on Melinda--apply to Banter for his Assistance--he
contrives a scheme for that purpose--which is put in Execution with
great Success--I make an Attempt upon the Heart of Miss Gripewell, but
am disappointed--grow melancholy at my Disappointment, and have
recourse to the Bottle--receive a Billet-doux--am ravished with the
Contents--find myself involved in Intrigue, which I imagined would make
my Fortune--am confounded at my mistake, which banishes all Thoughts of
Matrimony

In the meantime, my attention was wholly engrossed in search of another
mistress, and the desire of being revenged on Melinda, in both which
schemes I was very much assisted by Billy Chatter, who was such a
necessary creature among the ladies, that in all private dances he
engaged the men. To him therefore I applied, desiring he would introduce
me to a partner of some figure, at the next private assembly, for the
sake of a frolic, the intention of which I would afterwards communicate.
Billy, who had heard something of a difference between Melinda and me,
immediately smoked part of my design, and, thinking I only wanted to
alarm her jealousy a little, promised to gratify my desire, by matching
me with a partner worth thirty thousand pounds, whom the ladies of this
end of the town had lately taken under their management and protection.
Upon further inquiry, I found this person's name was Miss Biddy
Gripewell; that her father, who had been a pawnbroker, died intestate,
by which means all his substance descended to his daughter, who was so
little a favourite that, could the old man have prevailed with his own
rapacious disposition to part with as much money as would have paid the
expense of a will, she would not have inherited the sixth part of his
fortune; that during his life, far from being educated in a way suitable
to such great expectations, she was obliged to live like a servant
wench, and do the most menial offices in the family. But his funeral was
no sooner performed, than she assumed the fine lady, and found so many
people of both sexes to flatter, caress, and instruct her, that, for
want of discretion and experience, she was grown insufferably vain and
arrogant, and pretended to no less than a duke or earl at least for
her husband; that she had the misfortune to be neglected by the English
quality, but a certain poor Scottish lord was then making interest to be