By this stratagem, which I did not then understand, he filled me with
tenderness and gratitude, compelled me to repose on him as my only
support, and produced a necessity of private conversation. He often
appointed interviews at the house of an acquaintance, and sometimes
called on me with a coach, and carried me abroad. My sense of his
favour, and the desire of retaining it, disposed me to unlimited
complaisance, and, though I saw his kindness grow every day more fond, I
did not suffer any suspicion to enter my thoughts. At last the wretch
took advantage of the familiarity which he enjoyed as my relation, and
the submission which he exacted as my benefactor, to complete the ruin
of an orphan, whom his own promises had made indigent, whom his
indulgence had melted, and his authority subdued.
I know not why it should afford subject of exultation to overpower on
any terms the resolution, or surprise the caution of a girl; but of all
the boasters that deck themselves in the spoils of innocence and beauty,
they surely have the least pretensions to triumph, who submit to owe
their success to some casual influence. They neither employ the graces
of fancy, nor the force of understanding, in their attempts; they cannot
please their vanity with the art of their approaches, the delicacy of
their adulations, the elegance of their address, or the efficacy of
their eloquence; nor applaud themselves as possessed of any qualities,
by which affection is attracted.
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