 assuring me, at the same time, that they were all young
gentlemen agreeable in their persons, and unexceptionable in every respect; that
united, and holding together by the band of common pleasures, they composed the
chief support of her house, and made very liberal presents to the girls that
pleas'd and humour'd them, so that they were, properly speaking, the founders
and patrons of this little seraglio. Not but that she had, at proper seasons,
other customers to deal with, whom she stood less upon punctilio with than with
these; for instance, it was not on one of them she could attempt to pass me for
a maid; they were not only too knowing, too much town-bred to bite at such a
bait, but they were such generous benefactors to her that it would be
unpardonable to think of it.
    Amidst all the flutter and emotion which this promise of pleasure, for such
I conceiv'd it, stirr'd up in me, I preserved so much of the woman as to feign
just reluctance enough to make some merit of sacrificing it to the influence of
my patroness, whom I likewise, still in character, reminded of it perhaps being
right for me to go home and dress, in favour of my first impressions.
    But Mrs. Cole, in opposition to this, assured me that the gentlemen I should
be presented to were, by their rank and taste of things, infinitely superior to
the being touched with any glare of dress or ornaments, such as silly women
rather confound and overlay than set off their beauty with; that these veteran
voluptuaries knew better than not to hold them in the highest contempt: they
with whom the pure native charms alone could pass current, and who would at any
time leave a sallow, washy, painted duchess on her own hands, for a ruddy,
healthy, firm-flesh'd country maid; and as for my part, that nature had done
enough for me, to set me above owing the least favour to art; concluding withal,
that for the instant occasion, there was no dress like an undress.
    I thought my governess too good a judge of these matters not to be easily
over-ruled by her: after which she went on preaching very pathetically the
doctrine of passive obedience and non-resistance to all those arbitrary tastes
of pleasure, which are by some styl'd the refinements, and by others the
depravations of it; between whom it was not the business of a simple girl, who
was to profit by pleasing, to decide, but to conform
