all the fatigues of so many years' hurry and business'; and then he added, 'But I'll make you pay for it all, now I have you.' I started a little at the words. 'Ay', said I, 'do you threaten already? Pray what d'ye mean by that?'; and began to look a little grave.
'I'll tell you', says he, 'very plainly what I mean'; and still he held me fast in his arms. 'I intend from this time never to trouble myself with any more business, so I shall never get one shilling for you more than I have already; all that you will lose one way. Next, I intend not to trouble myself with any of the care or trouble of managing what either you have for me or what I have to add to it; but you shall e'en take it all upon yourself, as the wives do in Holland; so you will pay for it that way too, for all the drudgery shall be yours. Thirdly, I intend to condemn you to the constant bondage of my impertinent company, for I shall tie you like a pedlar's pack at my back. I shall scarce ever be from you; for I am sure I can take delight in nothing else in this world.' 'Very well', says I; 'but I am pretty heavy. I hope you'll set me down some times when you are aweary.' 'As for that', says he, 'tire me if you can.'
This was all jest and allegory; but it was all true, in the moral of the fable, as you shall hear in its place. We were very merry the rest of the day, but without any noise or clutter; for he brought not one of his acquaintance or friends, either English or foreigner. The honest Quaker provided us a very noble dinner indeed, considering how few we were to eat it; and every day that week she did the like, and would at last have it be all at her own charge, which I was utterly averse to; first, because I knew her circumstances not to be very great, though not very low; and next, because she had been so true a friend, and so cheerful a comforter to me, ay, and counsellor too, in all this affair, that I had resolved to make her a present that should be some help to her when all was over.
But to return to the circumstances of our wedding. After being very merry, as I have told you, Amy and the Quaker put us to bed, the honest Quaker little thinking we had been abed together eleven years before. Nay, that was a secret which, as it happened, Amy herself did not know. Amy grinned and made faces, as if she had been pleased; but it came out in so many words, when he was not by, the sum of her mumbling and muttering was, that this should have been done ten or a dozen years before; that it would signify little now; that was to say, in short, that her mistress was pretty near fifty, and too old to have any children. I chid her; the Quaker laughed, complimented me upon my not being so old as Amy pretended, that I could not be above forty, and might have a house full of children yet. But Amy, and I too, knew better than she how it was, for, in short, I was old enough to have done breeding, however I looked; but I made her hold her tongue.
In the morning, my Quaker landlady came and visited us before we were up, and made us eat cakes and drink chocolate in bed; and then left us again, and bid us take a nap upon it, which I believe we did. In short, she treated us so handsomely, and with such an agreeable cheerfulness, as well as plenty, as made it appear to me that Quakers may, and that this Quaker did, understand good manners as well as any other people.
I resisted her offer, however, of treating us for the whole week; and I opposed it so long, that I saw evidently that she took it ill, and would have thought herself slighted if we had not accepted it. So I said no more, but let her go on, only told her I would be even with her; and so
