Thus easy, and
beloved by the whole family, did I go on; when one day, that,
about five in the afternoon, I stepped over to a fruiterer's
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 ob-
serv'd myself follow'd by a young gentleman, whose rich
dress first attracted my notice; for the rest, he had no-
thing remarkable in his person, except that he was pale,
thin-made, and ventur'd 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 ask'd 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 appear-
ances of never forsook me, even on those occasions that I
most broke in upon it, in practice) were all signs that gave
him no opening to conjecture my condition. He spoke to me;
and this address from a stranger throwing a blush into my
cheeks that still set him wider off the truth, I answered
him with an aukwardness and confusion the more apt to impose,
as there was really a mixture of the genuine in them.
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