inued I, "they should not be treated with so
much severity, because I suppose none would be so if they could. No
lady in her senses would choose to make a subordinate figure at
christenings and lyings-in, when she might be the principal herself;
nor curry favour with a sister-in-law, when she might command an
husband; nor toil in preparing custards, when she might lie a-bed and
give directions how they ought to be made; nor stifle all her
sensations in demure formality, when she might with matrimonial
freedom shake her acquaintance by the hand, and wink at a double
entendre. No lady could be so very silly as to live single, if she
could help it. I consider an unmarried lady declining into the vale of
years, as one of those charming countries bordering on China that lies
waste for want of proper inhabitants. We are not to accuse the
country, but the ignorance of its neighbours, who are insensible of
its beauties, though at liberty to enter and cultivate the soil."

"Indeed, sir," replied my companion, "you are very little acquainted
with the English ladies, to think they are old maids against their
will. I dare venture to affirm, that you can hardly select one of them
all but has had frequent offers of marriage, which either pride or
avarice has not made her reject. Instead of thinking it a disgrace,
they take every occasion to boast of their former cruelty; a soldier
does not exult more when he counts over the wounds he has received,
than a female veteran when she relates the wounds she has formerly
given: exhaustless when she begins a narrative of the former
death-dealing power of her eyes. She tells of the knight in gold lace,
who died with a single frown, and never rose again till--he was
married to his maid; of the squire, who being cruelly denied, in a
rage flew to the window, and lifting up the sash, threw himself in an
agony--into his arm chair; of the parson who, crossed in love,
resolutely swallowed opium, which banished the stings of despised love
by--making him sleep. In short, she talks over her former losses with
pleasure, and, like some tradesmen, finds some consolation in the many
bankruptcies she has suffered.

"For this reason, whenever I see a superannuated beauty still
unmarried, I tacitly accuse her either of pride, avarice, coquetry, or
affectation. There's Miss Jenny Tinderbox, I once remember her to have
had some beauty, and a moderate fortune. Her elder sister happened to
marry a man of quality