I
only too good for him at any rate, and on any terms.

She went then, at the hour appointed, to his lodgings in one of our inns
of court, which were furnished in a taste of grandeur that had a special
eye to all the conveniences of luxury and pleasure. Here she found him
in ready waiting; and after finishing her business of pretence, and a
long conduit of discussions concerning her trade, which she said was
very bad, the qualities of her servants, apprentices, journey-women,
the discourse naturally landed at length on me, when Mrs. Cole, acting
admirably the good old prating gossip, who lets every thing escape her
when her tongue is set in motion, cooked him up a story so plausible
of me, throwing in every now and then such strokes of art, with all the
simplest air of nature, in praise of my person and temper, as finished
him finely for her purpose, whilst nothing could be better counterfeited
than her innocence of his. But when now fired and on edge, he proceeded
to drop hints of his design and views upon me, after he had with much
confusion and pains brought her to the point (she kept as long aloof
from it as she thought proper) of understanding him, without now
affecting to pass for a dragoness of virtue, by flying out into those
violent and ever suspicious passions, she stuck with the better grace
and effect to the character of a plain, good sort of woman, that knew
no harm, and that getting her bread in an honest way, was made of stuff
easy and flexible enough to be wrought to his ends, by his superior
skill and address; but, however, she managed so artfully that three or
four meetings took place, before he could obtain the least favourable
hope of her assistance; without which, he had, by a number of fruitless
messages, letters, and other direct trials of my disposition, convinced
himself there was no coming at me, all which too raised at once my
character and price with him.

Regardful, however, of not carrying these difficulties to such a
length as might afford time for starting discoveries, or incidents,
unfavourable to her plan, she at last pretended to be won over by mere
dint of entreaties, promises, and, above all, by the dazzling sum she
took care to wind him up to the specification of, when it was now even a
piece of art to feign, at once, a yielding to the allurements of a great
interest, as a pretext for her yielding at all, and the manner of it
such as might persuade him she had never dipped her vir