, that among us modern fine people,
the company, and not the entertainment, is the principal part of the
raree-show. Pretty enough! to make the entertainment, and pay for it
too, to the honest fellows, who have nothing to do, but to project
schemes to get us together.

I don't know what to do with this man. I little thought that I was to be
considered as such a doll, such a toy, as he would make me. I want to
drive him out of the house without me, were it but to purvey for me news
and scandal. What are your fine gentlemen fit for else? You know, that,
with all my faults, I have a domestic and managing turn. A man should
encourage that in a wife, and not be perpetually teasing her for her
company abroad, unless he did it with a view to keep her at home. Our
sex don't love to be prescribed to, even in the things from which they
are not naturally averse: and for this very reason, perhaps, because it
becomes us to submit to prescription. Human nature, Harriet, is a
perverse thing. I believe, if my good man wished me to stay at home, I
should torture my brain, as other good wives do, for inventions to go
abroad.

It was but yesterday, that in order to give him a hint, I pinned my apron
to his coat, without considering who was likely to be a sufferer by it;
and he, getting up, in his usual nimble way, gave it a rent, and then
looked behind him with so much apprehension--Hands folded, eyes goggling,
bag in motion from shoulder to shoulder. I was vexed too much to make
the use of the trick which I had designed, and huffed him. He made
excuses, and looked pitifully; bringing in his soul, to testify that he
knew not how it could be. How it could be! Wretch! When you are always
squatting upon one's clothes, in defiance of hoop, or distance.

He went out directly, and brought me in two aprons, either of which was
worth twenty of that he so carelessly rent. Who could be angry with him?
--I was, indeed, thinking to chide him for this--As if I were not to be
trusted to buy my own clothes; but he looked at me with so good-natured
an eye, that I relented, and accepted, with a bow of graciousness, his
present; only calling him an odd creature--And that he is, you know, my
dear.

We live very whimsically, in the main: not above four quarrels, however,
and as many more chidings, in a day. What does the man stay at home for
then so much, when I am at home?--Married people, by frequent absences,
may have a chance for a little happiness.