Wit applied to a woman makes her dissolve her simpering and discover her teeth with laughter, and this is surely a purge of love, for the beginning of love is a kind of foolish melancholy.

Great was her astonishment when, a moment later, not the tutor, but Lord Almeric, fanning himself with a laced handkerchief and carrying his little French hat under his arm, appeared on the threshold, and entered simpering and bowing.

You struggle against it; you make spasmodic efforts to be lively; but none of your sallies or your good stories do more than raise a simper or a forced laugh: intellect and feeling are alike asphyxiated.

" The lady had recovered her simper; and now flirted her fan as gracefully as ever.

whose false lips seductive simpers part, While cunning nestles in the harlot-heart!