of her usual caution, was in no haste to fill up; but then
it redoubled her attention to procure me, in the advantages of a traffic
for a counterfeit maidenhead, some consolation for the sort of widowhood
I had been left in; and this was a scheme she had never lost prospect
of, and only waited for a proper person to bring it to bear with.

But I was, it seems, fated to be my own caterer in this, as I had been
in my first trial of the market.

I had now passed near a month in the enjoyment of all the pleasures of
familiarity and society with my companions, whose particular favourites
(the baronet excepted, who soon after took Harriet home) had all, on the
terms of community established in the house, solicited the gratification
of their taste for variety in my embraces; but I had with the utmost art
and address, on various pretexts, eluded their pursuit, without giving
them cause to complain; and this reserve I used neither out of dislike
of them, nor disgust of the thing, but my true reason was my attachment
to my own, and my tenderness of invading the choice of my companions,
who outwardly exempt, as they seemed, from jealousy, could not but in
secret like me the better for the regard I had for, without making a
merit of it to them. Thus easy, and beloved by the whole family, did I
get on; when one day, that, about five in the afternoon, I stepped over
to a fruit shop in Covent Garden, to pick some table fruit for myself
and the young women, I met with the following adventure.

Whilst I was chaffering for the fruit I wanted, I observed myself
followed by a young gentleman, whose rich dress first attracted my
notice; for the rest, he had nothing remarkable in his person, except
that he was pale, thin-made, and ventured himself upon legs rather of
the slenderest. Easy was it to perceive, without seeming to perceive
it, that it was me he wanted to be at; and keeping his eyes fixed on
me, till he came to the same basket that I stood at, and cheapening, or
rather giving the first price asked for the fruit, began his approaches.
Now most certainly I was not at all out of figure to pass for a modest
girl. I had neither the feathers, nor fumet of a taudry town-miss: a
straw hat, a white gown, clean linen, and above all, a certain natural
and easy air of modesty (which the appearances of never forsook me, even
on those occasions that I most brouke in upon it, in practice) were all
signs that gave him no opening to conjecture m