pared with it.

The old wretch had once put her leg out by her rage and violence, and had
been crying, scolding, cursing, ever since the preceding evening, that
the surgeon had told her it was impossible to save her; and that a
mortification had begun to show itself; insomuch that, purely in
compassion to their own ears, they had been forced to send for another
surgeon, purposely to tell her, though against his judgment, and (being a
friend of the other) to seem to convince him, that he mistook the case;
and that if she would be patient, she might recover. But, nevertheless,
her apprehensions of death, and her antipathy to the thoughts of dying,
were so strong, that their imposture had not the intended effect, and she
was raving, crying, cursing, and even howling, more like a wolf than a
human creature, when I came; so that as I went up stairs, I said, Surely
this noise, this howling, cannot be from the unhappy woman! Sally said
it was; and assured me, that it was noting to the noise she had made all
night; and stepping into her room before me, dear Madam Sinclair, said
she, forbear this noise! It is more like that of a bull than a woman!--
Here comes Mr. Belford; and you'll fright him away if you bellow at this
rate.

There were no less than eight of her cursed daughters surrounding her bed
when I entered; one of her partners, Polly Horton, at their head; and now
Sally, her other partner, and Madam Carter, as they called her, (for they
are all Madams with one another,) made the number ten; all in shocking
dishabille, and without stays, except Sally, Carter, and Polly; who, not
daring to leave her, had not been in bed all night.

The other seven seemed to have been but just up, risen perhaps from their
customers in the fore-house, and their nocturnal orgies, with faces,
three or four of them, that had run, the paint lying in streaky seams not
half blowzed off, discovering coarse wrinkled skins: the hair of some of
them of divers colours, obliged to the black-lead comb where black was
affected; the artificial jet, however, yielding apace to the natural
brindle: that of others plastered with oil and powder; the oil
predominating: but every one's hanging about her ears and neck in broken
curls, or ragged ends; and each at my entrance taken with one motion,
stroking their matted locks with both hands under their coifs, mobs, or
pinners, every one of which was awry. They were all slip-shoed;
stockingless some; only und