I was, of course, exceedingly annoyed to have been supposed capable of such a vulgar unmeaning piece of disrespect, and kept my feet as coyly under my petticoats as the veriest prude in the country till I should make my escape.'

Providence 120, 237, 293, 441, 543 Prudence 293 Prudes at the play 208 Psalm xxiii.

The rake on one hand, the prude on the other, represent the ultimate consequence of the process I am trying to describe.

Why are you playing the prude with me?

'The first thing I had to do, was to compliment the prude into shyness by complaints of shyness: next, to take advantage of the marquise's situation, between her husband's jealousy and his sister's arrogance; and to inspire her with resentment; and, as I hoped, with a regard to my person.

She was not going to be molded into a calculating prude like Grace, or a prig like Mortimer.

She was a Girl of such exuberant Mirth, that her Visit to Trophonius only reduced her to a more than ordinary Decency of Behaviour, and made a very pretty Prude of her.

Of the medley of characters in the poem, poet-princes in disguise at the college, violet-hooded lady principals, "With prudes for proctors, dowagers for deans, And sweet girl-graduates in their golden hair," it is Lady Psyche's child that is the true, effective heroine of the story, as Dr. Dawson aptly points out.

Ladies that can resolve to make love thus extempore, may pass unobserved, especially if they can content themselves with low life, where fear may oblige their favourites to secrecy: there wants only a very lewd constitution, a very bad heart, and a moderate understanding, to make this conduct easy: and I do not doubt it has been practised by many prudes beside her I am now speaking of.