been volving and revolving in my fancy some time,
but to no purpose, by what clean device or facette contrivance I might
so modulate them, that whilst I satisfy that ear which the reader chuses
to lend me--I might not dissatisfy the other which he keeps to himself.

--My ink burns my finger to try--and when I have--'twill have a worse
consequence--It will burn (I fear) my paper.

--No;--I dare not--

But if you wish to know how the abbess of Andouillets and a novice
of her convent got over the difficulty (only first wishing myself all
imaginable success)--I'll tell you without the least scruple.

Chapter 4.II.

The abbess of Andouillets, which if you look into the large set of
provincial maps now publishing at Paris, you will find situated amongst
the hills which divide Burgundy from Savoy, being in danger of an
Anchylosis or stiff joint (the sinovia of her knee becoming hard by long
matins), and having tried every remedy--first, prayers and thanksgiving;
then invocations to all the saints in heaven promiscuously--then
particularly to every saint who had ever had a stiff leg before
her--then touching it with all the reliques of the convent, principally
with the thigh-bone of the man of Lystra, who had been impotent from
his youth--then wrapping it up in her veil when she went to bed--then
cross-wise her rosary--then bringing in to her aid the secular arm, and
anointing it with oils and hot fat of animals--then treating it
with emollient and resolving fomentations--then with poultices
of marsh-mallows, mallows, bonus Henricus, white lillies and
fenugreek--then taking the woods, I mean the smoak of 'em, holding
her scapulary across her lap--then decoctions of wild chicory,
water-cresses, chervil, sweet cecily and cochlearia--and nothing all
this while answering, was prevailed on at last to try the hot-baths of
Bourbon--so having first obtained leave of the visitor-general to take
care of her existence--she ordered all to be got ready for her journey:
a novice of the convent of about seventeen, who had been troubled with
a whitloe in her middle finger, by sticking it constantly into the
abbess's cast poultices, &c.--had gained such an interest, that
overlooking a sciatical old nun, who might have been set up for ever by
the hot-baths of Bourbon, Margarita, the little novice, was elected as
the companion of the journey.

An old calesh, belonging to the abbesse, lined with green frize, was
ordered to be drawn out