Coquetilla we will call
one, Prudiana another, Profusiana the third, and Prudentia the fourth;
their several names denoting their respective qualities.
"Coquetilla was the only daughter of a worthy baronet, by a lady very
gay, but rather indiscreet than unvirtuous, who took not the requisite
care of her daughter's education, but let her be over-run with the
love of fashion, dress, and equipage; and when in London, balls,
operas, plays, the Park, the Ring, the withdrawing-room, took up her
whole attention. She admired nobody but herself, fluttered about,
laughing at, and despising a crowd of men-followers, whom she
attracted by gay, thoughtless freedoms of behaviour, too nearly
treading on the skirts of immodesty: yet made she not one worthy
conquest, exciting, on the contrary, in all sober minds, that contempt
of herself, which she so profusely would be thought to pour down upon
the rest of the world. After she had several years fluttered about the
dangerous light, like some silly fly, she at last singed the wings of
her reputation; for, being despised by every worthy heart, she became
too easy and cheap a prey to a man the most unworthy of all her
followers, who had resolution and confidence enough to break through
those few cobweb reserves, in which she had encircled her precarious
virtue; and which were no longer of force to preserve her honour, when
she met with a man more bold and more enterprising than herself, and
who was as designing as she was thoughtless.
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