If Miss Betsy had wanted any confirmation of the truth of her suspicions, the looks of Miss Flora, during this whole discourse, would have removed all doubt in her; and the opportunity of venting the spleen she had so justly conceived against her, without seeming to do so, gave her a most exquisite satisfaction. CHAPTER VII _Is the better for being short_ Miss Flora retired to her chamber, indeed, not to employ herself in the manner she pretended, but to give a loose to passions more inordinate and outrageous than it would naturally be believed could have taken possession of so young a heart. But it is now high time to let the reader see into the secret springs which set her wicked wit in motion, and induced her to act in the manner she had done. Through the whole course of the preceding pages, many hints have been given, that the inclinations of this young lady were far from being unblameable; and it will not seem strange, that a person of the disposition she has all along testified, should envy and malign those charms she every day saw so much extolled, and preferred above her own; but we do not ordinarily find one, who, all gay and free like her, and who various times, and for various objects, had experienced those emotions which we call love, should all at once be inspired with a passion no less serious than it was violent, for a person who never made the least addresses to her on that account. Yet so in effect it was: Mr. Trueworth had been but a very few times in her company, before she began to entertain desires for the lover of her fair friend. Whenever she had an opportunity of speaking to him alone, she made him many advances, which he either did not, or would not, interpret in the sense she meant them. This coldness, instead of abating, did but the more inflame her wishes; and, looking on the passion he had for Miss Betsy, as the only impediment to the gratification of her inclinations, she cursed his constancy, and the beauties which excited it. So true is that observation of Mr. Dryden-- 'Love various minds does variously inspire; He stirs in gentle natures gentle fire, Like that of incense on the altar laid; But raging flames tempestuous souls invade. A fire which every windy passion blows; With pride it mounts, and with revenge it glows.' Miss Flora was not of a temper, either to bear the pangs of hopeless love in silent grief, or to give way too readily to despair. In spite of the indifference she found herself treated with by Mr. Trueworth, she was not without hope, that if she could by any means occasion a disunion between him and Miss Betsy, he would then be brought to cast his eyes on her, and return her flame with some degree of ardency.