
commit it ourselves? Or Lastly, (which Experience seems to make probable) have
we a Satisfaction in aggrandizing our Families, even tho' we have not the least
Love or Respect for them?
    Whether any of these Motives operated on the Doctor we will not determine;
but so the Fact was. He sent for his Brother, and easily found Means to
introduce him at Allworthy's as a Person who intended only a short Visit to
himself.
    The Captain had not been in the House a Week before the Doctor had Reason to
felicitate himself on his Discernment. The Captain was indeed as great a Master
of the Art of Love as Ovid was formerly. He had besides received proper Hints
from his Brother, which he failed not to improve to the best Advantage.
 

                                   Chapter XI

     Containing many Rules, and some Examples, concerning falling in love:
  Descriptions of Beauty, and other more prudential Inducements to Matrimony.
 
It hath been observed by wise Men or Women, I forget which, that all Persons are
doomed to be in Love once in their Lives. No particular Season is, as I
remember, assigned for this; but the Age at which Miss Bridget was arrived seems
to me as proper a Period as any to be fixed on for this Purpose: It often indeed
happens much earlier; but when it doth not, I have observed, it seldom or never
fails about this Time. Moreover, we may remark that at this Season Love is of a
more serious and steady Nature than what sometimes shews itself in the younger
Parts of Life. The Love of Girls is uncertain, capricious, and so foolish that
we cannot always discover what the young Lady would be at; nay, it may almost be
doubted, whether she always knows this herself.
    Now we are never at a Loss to discern this in Women about Forty; for as such
grave, serious and experienced Ladies well know their own Meaning, so it is
always very easy for a Man of the least Sagacity to discover it with the utmost
Certainty.
    Miss Bridget is an Example of all these Observations. She had not been many
Times in the Captain's Company before she was seized with this Passion. Nor did
she go pining and moping about the House, like a puny foolish Girl, ignorant of
her Distemper: She felt, she knew, and she enjoyed, the pleasing Sensation, of
which, as she was certain it was not only innocent but laudable, she was neither
afraid nor ashamed.
    And to say the Truth, there is in all Points, great Difference between the
reasonable Passion which Women at this Age
