best; and then it is so unfashionable, nothing of a gentleman ever meddles with such things.

Lady. Indeed, sister, you mistake, I have known very good gentlemen to be religious, and talk religiously too; and think it becomes them very well; and if Sir Richard would be so, I should be very glad.

Sist. O madam, Sir Richard fits you to a tittle, he has had such a fit of religion to-day, no mountebank ever was a better mimic.

[This she said with a great deal of banter and raillery.] Lady. Upon what subject, pray ?

Sist. O upon this sister of his, you may be sure; about doing my duty, and observing my marriage contract, talking profanely, and a hundred such things, I scarce know what, without either head or tail, but all upon me.

Lady. About your parting from your husband, I suppose.

Sist. Yes, madam.

Lady. Truly sister, he had field enough there, for every body that I hear speak of it blames you; but I don't care to meddle.

Sist. If every body blames me, then I will blame every body; for what have they to do with it?

for

Lady. Why, that is true, but they that have a respect you, cannot but be troubled for you.

Sist. Troubled for me, for what?

Lady. Why, madam, they say, you parted from your husband, for no reason but because he was too religious

for you.

Sist. And reason enough, I think,-what had he to do to impose his religious doings upon me? He knew I hated every thing about it.

Lady. You do not hate religion I hope, sister?

Sist. I hate all things that I do not understand,—I have not thought it much worth my while to enquire about reli

gion,—and when I want help, I can send to my husband to choose it for me.

Lady. Dear sister, I cannot abide to hear you talk so. Sist. I shall talk so for all that, if any body enters into such discourse with me.

Lady. Well, sister, then I'll meddle no more with it; but for your own sake, I wish somebody would befriend you so much as to make up this broil between you and your husband, and that you might go home again and live as you should do.

Sist. I care not if I never go near him more.

Lady. I am very sorry for you, sister,-I think you are murdering your reputation and ruining your family, and I cannot but be grieved for you.

Sist. That is nobody's business but my own.

[In this interval comes in Sir Richard again; and as he was chagrined before, and now seeing his lady wiping her eyes, he thought his sister had said something to grieve his wife, and that made him a little warm.]

Sir R. My dear, what's the matter? What, have you been engaged with this mad woman too?

Lady. I am sorry to see my sister so obstinate, and so hard to be persuaded.

Sir R. Aye, and in so shameful a cause too, that makes me say she is a mad woman.

Sist. That's the kindest thing, I suppose, I am to expect from my brother.

Sir R. Indeed, sister, it is the kindest thing can be said of you, to say any thing else of it, is to say you are possessed, that you are given up to Satan.

Sist. I can expect no other of you, I find you are a party, you have been with the religious brute again, I suppose ; but it is all one, I'll neither be forced by him at home, nor by you from him abroad; this is driving me headlong to heaven.

Sir R. I wish you were not running headlong somewhere else.

Sist. Well, well, if this be the treatment I must have in your house, brother, I'll take sanctuary somewhere else, and so good bye to ye.

Sir R. Indeed, sister, you have but saved me the labour of desiring that favour of you, for I desire none of God's enemies in my house; you had been welcome upon any other occasion: I wish you repentance, and that you may know your own interest both as to God and man.

They had but few words about it,-for taking her brother at his word, she went away the same day in disgust,and not resolving presently whither to go, she stayed at a neighbour's house two or three days; and once she went down to her own house, knowing her husband was not at home; but she had a mind to see the children, and talk with old nurse, who she heard had been at Sir Richard's.

The old nurse was overjoyed to see her, and treated her with abundance of God bless you's, madam, as was the poor woman's way,-and it was believed, if her husband had been at home, she might have been prevailed with to have stayed; but she broke away again, though the poor old nurse fell down on her knees to her, to entreat her to stay.

Being gone thus in a wild humour, enraged that her brother had, as it were, turned her out of doors; she passes by a good sober house in the town, where she might have been welcome, and would have had good advice, and went to the house of one of her old companions, about two miles off; who was indeed ten times more the child of hell than herself.

Here she told her tale, and had a she-devil at her elbow to say yes to all she affirmed, and amen to all she resolved; that prompted her to be worse than ever the devil (for want of an agent perhaps) had an opportunity to desire her to be,-till at last, she made her so wicked, that she was frighted with her own picture, and was brought to reflect upon herself, and repent, by those very steps the devil took to ruin her.

It would be a sad, and far from a diverting story, to give an account of all the mad steps these two creatures took together; I do not mean as to common vices, she was too much a gentlewoman to behave herself scandalously,— nor was any thing of that kind ever suggested, that I have met with. But her disgust at her brother, her aversion to her husband, and her contempt of all that was sober and religious, was carried up, by the assistance of this companion of hers, to such a height, that she despised all advice, was deaf to the importunities of all her friends, as shall be farther related presently.

This companion of hers took that common, but foolish way, that many think the best method of obliging their friends, (viz.) of agreeing, and saying yes, to every thing, right or wrong; she had been intimate with this gentlewoman from her youth, and bred up in the same loose, untaught manner; as to any thing religious, aperfect stranger; as to sense, she was like herself, a toy, gay aud vain, empty of all that was good; as foolish and as profane as her heart could wish. Here she was perfectly easy, for nobody was friendly enough to admonish her, or sincere enough to advise her; and she lived to see, and to acknowledge, how empty and insignificant that friendship is, that is not honest enough to bear, and faithful enough to give reproof.

This she-friend, among the rest of her follies had accustomed herself to a most abominable looseness of the tongue, and gave herself such a latitude of ill words, that she scarce spoke ten words without intermixing some of the other by way of ornament; a custom grown up of late to such a height, that it is become the vice of our conversation; while at the same time it is so fashionable too, that people think it adorns their speech, and that their language is not polite without it.

Among the rest of her foolish phrases, she had this in particular, poison it; or if spoken of any person, poison him, or poison her; this was grown so frequent and so

familiar to her tongue, that it became the very catch-word of all her discourse; nothing came without it, though in itself an unmusical, coarse, and odd saying, scarce ever used by any before her: if her coffee or tea was too hot, or too cold, it was always the same.-O poison it, it is nasty stuff. If she talked to her servants, it was poison them, at every word, if she did not like any thing: so that, in short, it run through all her discourse, and yet the foolish creature had no thoughts of ill, when she said it; meant nothing, would not have hurt any body, much less poison them; but the word had gained upon her fancy, she liked it for a word to be tossed upon her tongue; she thought it sat well upon her speech; and in a word, she had let it grow upon her to a habit, so that it was merely natural to her. Our unhappy lady being now in the family, they grew intimate to be sure, and in their conversation she failed not to tell this new confident all her grievances; first about her uncle, the good old minister, and his calling all the house to prayers. And you know, madam, says she, how I hate their priestcraft, and the wheedling ways that these parsons take to make then selves the heads of people's families, and to make us think them all saints; yet as I expect to be the old man's heiress, and he has a good estate, what could I do? You know, madam, a body would not differ with an old fool, and so disoblige him.

No, poison him, says she, one would bear any thing on

that account.

But then madam, says the lady, he carried it on so long, that my poor fool of a husband pretends to like it; and when the parson is gone, he pretends to be chaplain himself.

O poison the old fellow, says she, what did he stay so long for?

Why, madam, says, the other, he was lame of the gout, and we could not be rid of him sooner: nor did that trouble me so much, but to see my husband turned parson, and whine out the prayers morning and night, that was such