entleman. Our fortune is
large, our minds are vacant, our dispositions gay, our acquaintances
numerous, and our relations splendid. We considered that marriage, like
life, has its youth; that the first year is the year of gaiety and
revel, and resolved to see the shows and feel the joys of London, before
the increase of our family should confine us to domestick cares and
domestick pleasures.

Little time was spent in preparation; the coach was harnessed, and a few
days brought us to London, and we alighted at a lodging provided for us
by Miss Biddy Trifle, a maiden niece of my husband's father, where we
found apartments on a second floor, which my cousin told us would serve
us till we could please ourselves with a more commodious and elegant
habitation, and which she had taken at a very high price, because it was
not worth the while to make a hard bargain for so short a time.

Here I intended to lie concealed till my new clothes were made, and my
new lodging hired; but Miss Trifle had so industriously given notice of
our arrival to all her acquaintance, that I had the mortification next
day of seeing the door thronged with painted coaches and chairs with
coronets, and was obliged to receive all my husband's relations on a
second floor.

Inconveniencies are often balanced by some advantage: the elevation of
my apartments furnished a subject for conversation, which, without some
such help, we should have been in danger of wanting. Lady Stately told
us how many years had passed since she climbed so many steps. Miss Airy
ran to the window, and thought it charming to see the walkers so little
in the street; and Miss Gentle went to try the same experiment, and
screamed to find herself so far above the ground.

They all knew that we intended to remove, and, therefore, all gave me
advice about a proper choice. One street was recommended for the purity
of its air, another for its freedom from noise, another for its nearness
to the Park, another because there was but a step from it to all places
of diversion, and another because its inhabitants enjoyed at once the
town and country.

I had civility enough to hear every recommendation with a look of
curiosity, while it was made, and of acquiescence, when it was
concluded, but in my heart felt no other desire than to be free from the
disgrace of a second floor, and cared little where I should fix, if the
apartments were spacious and splendid.

Next day a chariot was hired, an