y let
him know that if he knocks at the Door, he will be carry'd to the
Parlour Fire; and I will come down soon after, and give him an
Opportunity to break his Mind.
I am, SIR,
Your humble Servant,
Mary Comfitt.

If I observe he cannot speak, Ill give him time to recover himself,
and ask him how he does.

Dear SIR,
I beg you to print this without Delay, and by the first Opportunity
give us the natural Causes of Longing in Women; or put me out of Fear
that my Wife will one time or other be delivered of something as
monstrous as any thing that has yet appeared to the World; for they
say the Child is to bear a Resemblance of what was desir'd by the
Mother. I have been marry'd upwards of six Years, have had four
Children, and my Wife is now big with the fifth. The Expences she has
put me to in procuring what she has longed for during her Pregnancy
with them, would not only have handsomely defray'd the Charges of the
Month, but of their Education too; her Fancy being so exorbitant for
the first Year or two, as not to confine it self to the usual Objects
of Eatables and Drinkables, but running out after Equipage and
Furniture, and the like Extravagancies. To trouble you only with a few
of them: When she was with Child of Tom, my eldest Son, she came home
one day just fainting, and told me she had been visiting a Relation,
whose Husband had made her a Present of a Chariot and a stately pair
of Horses; and that she was positive she could not breathe a Week
longer, unless she took the Air in the Fellow to it of her own within
that time: This, rather than lose an Heir, I readily comply'd with.
Then the Furniture of her best Room must be instantly changed, or she
should mark the Child with some of the frightful Figures in the
old-fashion'd Tapestry. Well, the Upholsterer was called, and her
Longing sav'd that bout. When she went with Molly, she had fix'd her
Mind upon a new Set of Plate, and as much China as would have
furnished an India Shop: These also I chearfully granted, for fear of
being Father to an Indian Pagod. Hitherto I found her Demands rose
upon every Concession; and had she gone on, I had been ruined: But by
good Fortune, with her third, which was Peggy, the Height of her
Imagination came down to the Corner of a Venison Pasty, and brought
her once even upon her Knees to gnaw off the Ears of a Pig from the
Spit. The Gratifications