Letter CLXVII

Summary

From a Gentleman to his Lady, whose Over-niceness in her House, and uneasy Temper with her Servants, make their Lives uncomfortable.

My Dear,

Your kind Concern for my Absence is very obliging. ‘Tis true, I have already out-stay’d my Intention by a Week; and I find the Place I am in so very engaging, and Mr. Terry and his Sister so agreeable, that, but to come to you, I could willingly stay a Month longer with them. In short, my Dear, Mr. Terry lives just as I would wish to live; and his Sister, who is his House-keeper, is just what I would wish you to be, in many Particulars; tho’ no one, in my Opinion, can equal you in others.

You must know then, that Mr. Terry and I are quite happy in one another; and when he has no Visitors, are indulg’d in a very pretty Parlour, which neither Pail nor Mop is permitted to enter for two or three Days together. And when we have Company, the Dining-room is at our Service, and the kind Lady lets us smoak there without remarking upon the beastly Fumes that we give the Furniture. Not only so, but if, by a sudden Turn of the Pipe, any one of us chances to bestrew the Floor with burnt Tobacco,we are not broken in upon either by Maid or Broom. And yet no Room can be cleaner than we find that, when we return to it from a Walk in the Gardens.

And indeed, I must acquaint you, that I never saw a Lady more prudently nice than Mrs. Terry.Her Person, Furniture, and House, are even Patterns of Neatness and good OEconomy. I never any-where saw the one or the other out-done. Yet how can this be, I marvel!—For I have seen her pass over the Mark of a dirty Shoe-heel, upon a Floor as white as a Curd, and never once rank the Aggressor among the worst of Slovens. Nay,more than mthat, I have seen her Brother drop a few Crums of Bread and Butter under his Feet, without so much as one corrective Frown? Is not this strange, my Dear? Have Batchelors, from a Sister, more Privileges, than a marry’d Man from his Wife?