It was impossible to
be less scruple-ridden than she was; and the advantage of
letting her rooms being her sole object, the truth itself
would have far from scandaliz'd her, or broke her bargain.
A sketch of her picture, and personal history, will dis-
pose you to account for the part she is to act in my concerns.
She was about forty-six years old, tall, meagre, red-
hair'd, with one of those trivial ordinary faces you meet
with everywhere, and go about unheeded and unmentioned. In
her youth she had been kept by a gentleman who, dying, left
her forty pounds a year during her life, in consideration of
a daughter he had by her; which daughter, at the age of
seven-teen, she sold, for not a very considerable sum nei-
ther, to a gentleman who was going on Envoy abroad, and took
his purchase with him, where he us'd her with the utmost
tenderness, and it is thought, was secretly married to her:
but had constantly made a point of her not keeping up the
least correspondence with a mother base enough to make a
market of her own flesh and blood. However, as she had no
nature, nor, indeed, any passion but that of money, this
gave her no further uneasiness, than, as she thereby lost a
handle of squeezing presents, or other after-advantages, out
of the bargain. Indifferent then, by nature of constitution,
to every other pleasure but that of increasing the lump by
any means whatever, she commenc'd a kind of private procur-
ess, for which she was not amiss fitted, by her grave decent
appearance, and sometimes did a job in the match-making way;
in short, there was nothing that appear'd to her under the
shape of gain that she would not have undertaken.
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