 might enable me to come off with honour, in
regard to the appearance of my virginity, except that, favour'd as I was by
nature with all the narrowness of stricture in that part requisite to conduct my
designs, I had no occasion to borrow those auxiliaries of art that create a
momentary one, easily discover'd by the test of a warm bath; and as to the usual
sanguinary symptoms of defloration, which, if not always, are generally
attendants on it, Mrs. Cole had made me the mistress of an invention of her own
which could hardly miss its effect, and of which more in its place.
    Everything then being disposed and fix'd for Mr. Norbert's reception, he
was, at the hour of eleven at night, with all the mysteries of silence and
secrecy, let in by Mrs. Cole herself, and introduced into her bed-chamber,
where, in an old-fashioned bed of her's, I lay, fully undressed, and panting, if
not with the fears of a real maid, at least with those perhaps greater of a
dissembled one which gave me an air of confusion and bashfulness that
maiden-modesty had all the honour of, and was indeed scarce distinguishable from
it, even by less partial eyes than those of my lover: so let me call him, for I
ever thought the term cully too cruel a reproach to the men for their abused
weakness for us.
    As soon as Mrs. Cole, after the old gossipery, on these occasions, us'd to
young women abandoned for the first time to the will of man, had left us alone
in her room, which, by-the-bye, was well lighted up, at his previous desire,
that seemed to bode a stricter examination than he afterwards made, Mr. Norbert,
still dressed, sprung towards the bed, where I got my head under the cloaths,
and defended them a good while before he could even get at my lips, to kiss
them: so true it is, that a false virtue, on this occasion, even makes a greater
rout and resistance than a true one. From thence he descended to my breasts, the
feel I disputed tooth and nail with him till, tired with my resistance, and
thinking probably to give a better account of me, when got into bed to me, he
hurry'd his cloaths off in an instant, and came into bed.
    Mean while, by the glimpse I stole of him, I could easily discover a person
far from promising any such doughty
