Neither Sex cares to deny themselves that which pleases, especially when they think they may innocently indulge it; and nothing pleases more than the being Admir’d and Humour’d. We may be told of the Danger, and shewn the Fall of others, but though their Misfortunes are ever so often or so lively represented to us, we are all so well assur’d of our own good Conduct, as to believe it will bring us safe off those Rocks on which others have been Shipwreck’d. We suppose it in our Power to shorten the Line of our Liberty whenever we think fit, not considering that the farther we run, we shall be the more unwilling to retreat, and unable to judge when a Retreat is necessary. A Woman does not know that she is more than half lost when she admits of these Suggestions; that those Arguments she brings for continuing a Man’s Conversation, prove only that she ought to have quitted it sooner; that Liking insensibly converts to Love, and that when she admits a Man to be her Friend, ’tis his Fault if he does not make himself her Husband. And if Men, even the Modestest and the Best, are only in pursuit of their own Designs, when they pretend to do the Lady Service; if the Honour they would seem to do her, tends only to lead her into an imprudent, and therefore a dishonourable Action; and they have all that good Opinion of themselves as to take every thing for Encouragement, so that she who goes beyond a bare Civility, though she meant no more than Respect, will find it interpreted a Favour, and made ill Use of, (for Favours, how innocent soever, never turn to a Lady’s Advantage) what Shadow of a Pretence can a Woman have for admitting an Intimacy with a Man, whose Principles are known to be Loose, and his Practices Licentious? can she expect to be safe with him who has ruin’d others, and by the very same Methods he takes with her? If an Intimacy with a Man of a fair Character gives Offence, with a Man of an ill one, ’tis doubly and trebly scandalous. And suppose neither her Fortune nor Beauty can tempt him, he has his ill-natur’d Pleasure in destroying that Vertue he will not practise, or if that can’t be done, in blasting the Reputation of it at least, and in making the World believe he has made a Conquest, though he has found a Foil.