For this purpose, I assumed a more distant behaviour, and affected to shew her something like respect. I did not drop the least hint of my knowing that Mr Arnold had made his lady uneasy on my account, much less that I suspected her for the wicked contriver of that mischief. I deferred the discussing of this point till a more favourable opportunity should offer, when it would be in my power to make a better use of it. My design was by degrees to make her satisfied enough with her situation, not to wish to return to Arnold. When I had once brought her to this, I judged it would not be difficult to carry her still farther, to the point I aimed at; and that was, to write a letter to him of my dictating. You will think this was a strange expectation, and yet it was what I resolved to accomplish. I knew the turn of the mind I had to deal with: bring a woman of this sort into good-humour, and it is easy to wheedle her into compliance. She has no solid understanding; but possesses, in the place of it, a sort of flashy wit, that imposes on common hearers, and makes her pass for what is called clever. With a great deal of vanity, and an affectation of tenderness, which covers the most termagant spirit that ever animated a female breast, her ruling and governing passion is avarice; and yet, strange to tell! generosity is of all things what she professes to admire, and is most studious of having thought her characteristic. Her pretensions to this virtue I have opposed to her vice of avarice, as the terms appropriated to each seem most contrary in their natures; yet I do not mean by generosity, that bounteous disposition which is commonly understood by the word: no, no; she aimed at the reputation of this virtue in our most exalted idea of it, and would fain be thought a woman of a _great soul_. This phrase was often in her mouth; and though her whole conduct gave the lye to her professions, she would tell you fifty stories, without a word of truth in any of them, to prove how nobly she had acted on such and such occasions. On the knowlege of this part of her temper, I chiefly built my hopes of success. I kept up a sort of forced conversation during the rest of our journey. She was sullen, but not rude. As I was far from desiring to come to an eclaircissement with her, I did not wish to have her in better temper. We reached the inn, which was about a mile on our side of Rochester, at eight o'clock in the morning. This was a favourable hour, as by that time every traveller must have left the stages they lay at. The house stood alone, and luckily enough had no company in it. My old servant, Lamb, had received my instructions by letter, and was prepared accordingly for our reception. This was the place to which I had ordered the maid to be carried; she had arrived there some time before us, and was safely lodged.