Читать книгу Character Writings of the Seventeenth Century - Various - Страница 50

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She is her mistress's she secretary, and keeps the box of her teeth, her hair, and her painting very private. Her industry is upstairs and downstairs, like a drawer; and by her dry hand you may know she is a sore starcher. If she lie at her master's bed's feet, she is quit of the green sickness for ever, for she hath terrible dreams when she's awake, as if she were troubled with the nightmare. She hath a good liking to dwell in the country, but she holds London the goodliest forest in England to shelter a great belly. She reads Greene's works over and over, but is so carried away with the "Mirror of Knighthood," she is many times resolved to run out of her self and become a lady-errant. The pedant of the house, though he promise her marriage, cannot grow further inward with her; she hath paid for her credulity often, and now grows weary. She likes the form of our marriage very well, in that a woman is not tied to answer to any articles concerning questions of virginity. Her mind, her body, and clothes are parcels loosely tacked together, and for want of good utterance she perpetually laughs out her meaning. Her mistress and she help to make away time to the idlest purpose that can be, either for love or money. In brief, these chambermaids are like lotteries: you may draw twenty ere one worth anything.