Soon after this, they all four went to the entertainment in Mr. Goodman's coach, which Lady Mellasin had ordered to be got ready. The captain was mightily pleased with the musick, and had judgment enough in it to know it was better than the band he had on board his ship. 'When they have done playing,' said he, 'I will ask them what they will have to go with me the next voyage.' But Mr. Staple told him it would be affront; that they were men who got more by their instruments than the best officer either by sea or land did by his commission. This mistake, as well as many others the captain fell into, made not only the company he was with, but those who sat near enough to hear him, a good deal of diversion.
Nothing of moment happening either here or at Mr. Goodman's, where they all supped together, it would be needless to repeat any particulars of the conversation; what has been said already of their different sentiments and behaviour, may be a sufficient sample of the whole.
CHAPTER XVIII
Treats on no fresh matters, but serves to heighten those already mentioned
Mr. Goodman had staid abroad till very late that night the concert had been performed, so was not a witness of any thing that had passed after the company came home: but on Lady Mellasin's repeating to him every thing she remembered, was very well pleased to hear that she had reconciled the captain to him; though extremely sorry that the blunt ill-judged affection of that gentleman had exposed him to the ridicule, not only of Miss Betsy, but also of all her followers.
That young lady, in the mean time, was far from having any commiseration for the anxieties of those who loved her; on the contrary, she triumphed in the pains she gave, if it can be supposed that she, who was altogether ignorant of them in herself, could look upon them as sincere in others. But, I am apt to believe, ladies of this cast regard all the professions of love made to them (as, indeed, many of them are) only as words of course—the prerogative of youth and beauty in the one sex, and a duty incumbent on the other to pay: they value themselves on the number and quality of their lovers, as they do upon the number and richness of their cloaths; because it makes them of consideration in the world, and never take the trouble of reflecting how dear it may sometimes cost those to whom they are indebted for indulging this vanity.
That this, at least, was the motive which induced Miss Betsy to treat her lovers in the manner she did, is evident to a demonstration, from every other action of her life. She had a certain softness in her disposition, which rendered her incapable of knowing the distress of any one, without affording all the relief that was in her power to give; and had she sooner been convinced of the reality of the woes of love, the sooner she had left off the ambition of inflicting them, and, perhaps, have been brought to regard those who laboured under them, rather with too much than too little compassion. But of this the reader will be able to judge on proceeding farther in this history.