Surely, Bridgman, returned I, you wish to keep yourself in the dark; or
how the duce have you been six days with people whose countenances speak
so much sensibility, and not make the discovery you seek after?
Though her behaviour to us; continued I, was politeness itself, was
there nothing more than _politeness_ in her address to Lord Darcey?--Her
smiles _too_, in which Diana and the Graces revel, saw you not _them_,
how they played from one to another, like sun-beams on the water, until
they fixed on him?--Is the nation in debt?--So much is Darcey in
love;--and you may as well pay off one, as rival the other with
success.
Observe, my friend, in what manner I have answered for you.--Keep her,
therefore, no longer in suspence.--Delays of this sort are not only
dangerous, but cruel.--Why delight to torture what we most admire?--From
a boy you despised such actions.--Often have I known Dick Jones, when at
Westminster, threshed by your hand for picking poor little birds
alive.--_His_ was an early point;--but for _Darcey_, accoutred with the
breast-plate of honour, even before he could read the word that
signifies its intrinsic value,--_for him_ to be falling off,--falling
off at a time _too_, when Virtue herself appears in person to support
him!
Can you say, you mean not to injure her?--Is a woman only to be injured,
but by an attempt on her virtue?--Is it _no_ crime, _no_ fault, to cheat
a young innocent lovely girl out of her affections, and give her
nothing in return but regret and disappointment?
Reflect, what a task is mine, thus to lay disagreeable truths plainly
before you.
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