of Quality.
Her Footmen, as I told you before, are such Beaus that I do not much
care for asking them Questions; when I do, they answer me with a sawcy
Frown, and say that every thing, which I find Fault with, was done by
my Lady Marys Order. She tells me that she intends they shall wear
Swords with their next Liveries, having lately observed the Footmen of
two or three Persons of Quality hanging behind the Coach with Swords
by their Sides. As soon as the first Honey-Moon was over, I
represented to her the Unreasonableness of those daily Innovations
which she made in my Family, but she told me I was no longer to
consider my self as Sir John Anvil, but as her Husband; and added,
with a Frown, that I did not seem to know who she was. I was surprized
to be treated thus, after such Familiarities as had passed between us.
But she has since given me to know, that whatever Freedoms she may
sometimes indulge me in, she expects in general to be treated with the
Respect that is due to her Birth and Quality. Our Children have been
trained up from their Infancy with so many Accounts of their Mothers
Family, that they know the Stories of all the great Men and Women it
has produced. Their Mother tells them, that such an one commanded in
such a Sea Engagement, that their Great Grandfather had a Horse shot
under him at Edge-hill, that their Uncle was at the Siege of Buda, and
that her Mother danced in a Ball at Court with the Duke of Monmouth;
with abundance of Fiddle-faddle of the same Nature. I was, the other
Day, a little out of Countenance at a Question of my little Daughter
Harriot, who asked me, with a great deal of Innocence, why I never
told them of the Generals and Admirals that had been in my Family. As
for my Eldest Son Oddly, he has been so spirited up by his Mother,
that if he does not mend his Manners I shall go near to disinherit
him. He drew his Sword upon me before he was nine years old, and told
me, that he expected to be used like a Gentleman; upon my offering to
correct him for his Insolence, my Lady Mary stept in between us, and
told me, that I ought to consider there was some Difference between
his Mother and mine. She is perpetually finding out the Features of
her own Relations in every one of my Children, tho, by the way, I
have a little Chubfaced Boy as like me as he can stare, if I durst say
so; but what most angers me, when she sees me playi