so far
distant. To say the truth, I am, at this present writing, not very much
turned for the recollection of what is diverting, my head being wholly
filled with the preparations necessary for the increase of my family,
which I expect every day. You may easily guess at my uneasy situation.
But I am, however, in some degree comforted, by the glory that accrues
to me from it, and a reflection on the contempt I should otherwise fall
under. You won't know what to make of this speech: but, in this country,
it is more despicable to be married and not fruitful, than it is with us
to be fruitful before marriage. They have a notion, that, whenever a
woman leaves off bringing children, it is because she is too old for
that business, whatever her face says to the contrary, and this opinion
makes the ladies here so ready to make proofs of their youth (which is
as necessary, in order to be a received beauty, as it is to shew the
proofs of nobility, to be admitted knight of Malta), that they do not
content themselves with using the natural means, but fly to all sorts of
quackeries, to avoid the scandal of being past child-bearing, and often
kill themselves by them. Without any exaggeration, all the women of my
acquaintance that have been married ten years, have twelve or thirteen
children; and the old ones boast of having had five-and-twenty or thirty
a-piece, and are respected according to the number they have produced.
When they are with child, it is their common expression to say, They
hope God will be so merciful to them to send two this time; and when I
have asked them sometimes, How they expected to provide for such a flock
as they desire? they answered, That the plague will certainly kill half
of them; which, indeed, generally happens, without much concern to the
parents, who are satisfied with the vanity of having brought forth so
plentifully.

"The French Ambassadress is forced to comply with this fashion as well
as myself. She has not been here much above a year, and has lain in
once, and is big again. What is most wonderful is, the exemption they
seem to enjoy from the curse entailed on the sex. They see all company
the day of their delivery, and, at the fortnight's end, return visits,
set out in their jewels and new clothes. I wish I may find the influence
of the climate in this particular. But I fear I shall continue an
Englishwoman in that affair."

Lady Mary gave birth to a daughter, Mary, in February. "I don't men