Sarah Fielding also takes her characters on a stage-coach journey, but here we sit beside the fair heroine, an intelligent lady, and gaze at the men who sit opposite her. There is the Butterfly with his hair pinned up in blue papers, wearing a laced waistcoat, and humming an Italian air. He admires nothing but the ladies, and offered some little familiarity to our heroine, which she repulsed; upon this he paid her the greatest respect imaginable, being convinced, as she would not suffer any intimacy from _him_, she must be one of the most virtuous women that had ever been born. There is the Atheist, who being alone with her for a few moments makes love to her in an insinuating manner, and tries to prove to her that pleasure is the only thing to be sought in life, and assures her that she may follow her inclinations without a crime, "while she knew that nothing could so much oppose her _gratifying him_, as her _pleasing herself_." Then there is the Clergyman who makes honourable love to her, but by doing so puts an end to the friendship which she had hoped might be between them; until at the end of the journey, "she almost made a resolution never to speak to a man again, beginning to think it impossible for a man to be civil to a woman, unless he had some designs upon her." Whether or not women have ever portrayed the masculine sex truthfully is an open question. But a gentleman mellowed and softened in the light of ladies' smiles is quite a different creature from the same gentleman when seen among the sterner members of his own sex, and there are certain phases of men's characters portrayed in the novels of women which Fielding, Scott, and Thackeray seem never to have seen.