t mind to tell you a lie, but
I should do it so awkwardly you'd find me out.

_Aman._ Then e'en speak the truth.

_Ber._ Shall I? Then after all, I did love him, Amanda, as a man
does penance.

_Aman._ Why did you not refuse to marry him, then?

_Ber._ Because my mother would have whipped me.

_Aman._ How did you live together?

_Ber._ Like man and wife--asunder. He loved the country, I the
town. He hawks and hounds, I coaches and equipage. He eating and
drinking, I carding and playing. He the sound of a horn, I the
squeak of a fiddle. Whenever we met we gave one another the spleen.

_Aman._ But tell me one thing truly and sincerely.

_Ber._ What's that?

_Aman._ Notwithstanding all these jars, did not his death at last
extremely trouble you?

_Ber._ O, yes. Not that my present pangs were so very violent, but
the after pangs were intolerable. I was forced to wear a beastly
widow's band a twelvemonth for 't.

In the "Journey to London," written at the end of Vanbrugh's life, and
not finished, there is a very amusing account of the manner in which a
country squire and family travelled up to London in the seventeenth
century.

_James._ They have added two cart-horses to the four old mares,
because my lady will have it said she came to town in her
coach-and-six; and ha! ha! heavy George, the ploughman, rides
postilion!

_Uncle Richard._ Very well; the journey begins as it should
do--James!

_James._ Sir!

_Uncle R._ Dost know whether they bring all the children with them?

_James._ Only Squire Humphry and Miss Betty, Sir; the other six are
put to board at half-a-crown a week a head with Joan Growse, at
Smoke-dunghill Farm.

_Uncle R._ The Lord have mercy upon all good folks! What work will
these people make! Dost know when they'll be here?

_James._ John says, Sir, they'd have been here last night, but that
the old wheezy-belly horse tired, and the two fore-wheels came
crash down at once in Waggon-rut Lane. Sir, they were cruelly
loaden, as I understand. My lady herself, he says, laid on four
mail trunks, besides the great deal-box, which fat Tom sat upon
behind.

_Uncle R._ So.

_James._ Then within the coach there was Sir Francis, my lady, the
great fat lap-dog, Squire Humphry, Miss Betty, my lady's