the persons whom they have in their custody. Orestilla is a great fortune,1 and in wonderful danger of surprises, therefore full of suspicions of the least indifferent thing, particularly careful of new acquaintance, and of growing too familiar with the old. Themista, her favorite woman, is every whit as careful of whom she speaks to, and what she says. Let the ward be a beauty, her confidante shall treat you with an air of distance; let her be a fortune, and she assumes the suspicious behavior of her friend and patroness. Thus it is that very many of our unmarried women of distinction are to all intents and purposes married, except the consideration of different sexes. They are directly under the conduct of their whisperer; and think they are in a state of freedom, while they can prate with one of these attendants of all men in general and still avoid the man they most like. You do not see one heiress in an hundred whose fate does not turn upon this circumstance of choosing a confidante. Thus it is that the lady is addressed to, presented and flattered, only by proxy, in her woman. In my case, how is it possible that—" Sir Roger was proceeding in his harangue, when we heard the voice of one speaking very importunately, and repeating these words, "What, not one smile?" We followed the sound till we came to a close thicket, on the other side of which we saw a young woman sitting as it were in a personated 2 sullenness just over a transparent fountain. Opposite to her stood Mr. William, Sir Roger's master of the game. The Knight whispered me, "Hist, these are lovers." The huntsman looking earnestly at the 1. Note below, "be a beauty," "be a fortune." shadow of the young maiden in the stream, "O thou dear picture, if thou couldst remain there in the absence of that fair creature, whom you represent in the water, how willingly could I stand here satisfied forever, without troubling my dear Betty herself with any mention of her unfortunate William, whom she is angry with: but alas! when she pleases to be gone, thou wilt also vanish — yet let me talk to thee while thou dost stay. Tell my dearest Betty thou dost not more depend upon her than does her William: her absence will make away with me as well as thee. If she offers to remove thee, I'll jump into these waves to lay hold on thee; herself, her own dear person, I must never embrace again. - Still do you hear me without one smile it is too much to bear." He had no sooner spoke these words but he made an offer of throwing himself into the water; at which his mistress started up, and at the next instant he jumped across the fountain and met her in an embrace. She, half recovering from her fright, said in the most charming voice imaginable, and with a tone of complaint, "I thought how well you would drown yourself. No, no, you won't drown yourself till you have taken your leave of Susan Holiday." The huntsman, with a tenderness that spoke the most passionate love, and with his cheek close to hers, whispered the softest vows of fidelity in her ear, and cried, "Don't, my dear, believe a word Kate Willow says; she is spiteful and makes stories, because she loves to hear me talk to herself for your sake." "Look you there," quoth Sir Roger, "do you see there, all mischief comes from confidantes! But let us not interrupt them; the maid is honest, and the man dares not be otherwise, for he knows I loved her father; I will interpose in this matter, and hasten the wedding. Kate Willow is a witty mischievous wench in the neighborhood, who was a beauty; and makes me hope I shall see the perverse Widow in her condition. She was so flippant with her answers to all the honest fellows that came near her, and so very vain of her beauty, that she has valued herself upon her charms till they are ceased. She therefore now makes it her business to prevent other young women from being more discreet than she was herself; however, the saucy thing said the other day well enough, 'Sir Roger and I must make a match, for we are both despised by those we loved.' The hussy has a great deal of power wherever she comes, and has her share of cunning. "However, when I reflect upon this woman, I do not know whether in the main I am the worse for having loved her; whenever she is recalled to my imagination my youth returns and I feel a forgotten warmth in my veins. This affliction in my life has streaked all my conduct with a softness of which I should otherwise have been incapable. It is, perhaps, to this dear image in my heart owing, that I am apt to relent, that I easily forgive, and that many desirable things are grown into my temper, which I should not have arrived at by better motives than the thought of being one day hers. I am pretty well satisfied such a passion as I have had is never well cured; and between you and me, I am often apt to imagine it has had some whimsical effect upon my brain. For I frequently find, that in my most serious discourse I let fall some comical familiarity of speech or odd phrase that makes the company laugh; however, I cannot but allow she is a most excellent woman. When she is in the country, I warrant she does not run into dairies, but reads upon the nature of plants; but has a glass hive, and comes into the garden out of books to see them work, and observe the policies of their commonwealth. She understands everything. I'd give ten pounds to hear her argue with my friend Sir Andrew Freeport about trade. No, no, for all she looks so innocent as it were, take my word for it she is no fool." SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY. XVIII. POLITE AND RUSTIC MANNERS. Urbem quam dicunt Romam, Melibœe, putavi VIRGIL, Eclogues, i. 20, 21. THE first and most obvious reflections which arise in a man who changes the city for the country 2 are upon the different manners of the people whom he meets with in those two different scenes of life. By manners I do not mean morals, but behavior and good-breeding as they show themselves in the town and in the country. And here, in the first place, I must observe a very 1. The city, Melibœus, that men call Rome, I, silly, thought like my small town. 2. It must be remembered that when Addison wrote, the infrequent intercourse between city and country left every petty neighborhood to form its own manners and dress, almost its own language. "A journey any little distance from home was a serious undertaking, so serious, indeed, that it often meant the inditing of a last will and testament before it was undertaken. Bad as the roads were in the summer-time when clouds of dust blinded the traveller in every direction, infinitely worse were they at such times as the waters were out or after a heavy fall of rain, when the chances were that wayfarers, after crawling along at a pace of two or three miles an hour in constant fear of sticking fast in a quagmire, had to brave the impetuous force of the current of some river that had overflowed its banks, the strong barely escaping with their lives, the weak often perishing in the stream.” — SYDNEY, England and the English in the Eighteenth Century, ii. 5. |