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she frequently made me presents as money came into her
hands, such as fully amounted to a maintenance, so that I spent
none of my own; and at last she made this unhappy proposal
to me, viz. that as we had observed, as above, how the men
made no scruple to set themselves out as persons meriting a
woman of fortune, when they had really no fortune of their
own, it was but just to deal with them in their own way and,
if it was possible, to deceive the deceiver.

The captain's lady, in short, put this project into my head, and
told me if I would be ruled by her I should certainly get a
husband of fortune, without leaving him any room to reproach
me with want of my own. I told her, as I had reason to do,
that I would give up myself wholly to her directions, and that
I would have neither tongue to speak nor feet to step in that
affair but as she should direct me, depending that she would
extricate me out of every difficulty she brought me into,
which she said she would answer for.

The first step she put me upon was to call her cousin, and to
to a relation's house of hers in the country, where she directed
me, and where she brought her husband to visit me; and calling
me cousin, she worked matters so about, that her husband
and she together invited me most passionately to come to town
and be with them, for they now live in a quite different place
from where they were before. In the next place, she tells her
husband that I had at least #1500 fortune, and that after some
of my relations I was like to have a great deal more.

It was enough to tell her husband this; there needed nothing
on my side. I was but to sit still and wait the event, for it
presently went all over the neighbourhood that the young
widow at Captain ----'s was a fortune, that she had at least
#1500, and perhaps a great deal more, and that the captain
said so; and if the captain was asked at any time about me,
he made no scruple to affirm it, though he knew not one word
of the matter, other than that his wife had told him so; and in
this he thought no harm, for he really believed it to be so,
because he had it from his wife: so slender a foundation will
those fellows build upon, if they do but think there is a fortune
in the game. With the reputation of this fortune, I presently
found myself blessed with admirers enough, and that I had my
choice of men, as scarce as they said they were, which, by the
way, confirms what I was saying before. This being my case,
I, who had a subtle game to play, had nothing now to do but
to single out from them all the properest man that might be
for my purpose; that is to say, the man who was most likely

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