several very considerable tradesmen, and particularly very
warmly by one, a linen-draper, at whose house, after my
husband's death, I took a lodging, his sister being my acquaintance.
Here I had all the liberty and all the opportunity to be gay and
appear in company that I could desire, my landlord's sister
being one of the maddest, gayest things alive, and not so much
mistress of her virtue as I thought as first she had been. She
brought me into a world of wild company, and even brought
home several persons, such as she liked well enough to gratify,
to see her pretty widow, so she was pleased to call me, and
that name I got in a little time in public. Now, as fame and
fools make an assembly, I was here wonderfully caressed, had
abundance of admirers, and such as called themselves lovers;
but I found not one fair proposal among them all. As for their
common design, that I understood too well to be drawn into
any more snares of that kind. The case was altered with me:
I had money in my pocket, and had nothing to say to them. I
had been tricked once by that cheat called love, but the game
was over; I was resolved now to be married or nothing, and
to be well married or not at all.

I loved the company, indeed, of men of mirth and wit, men of
gallantry and figure, and was often entertained with such, as
I was also with others; but I found by just observation, that the
brightest men came upon the dullest errand--that is to say, the
dullest as to what I aimed at. On the other hand, those who
came with the best proposals were the dullest and most
disagreeable part of the world. I was not averse to a tradesman,
but then I would have a tradesman, forsooth, that was
something of a gentleman too; that when my husband had a