hear me talk so senselessly, though 'twere but in your sleep, and not be
ready to beat me? What nice mistaken points of honour I pretended to,
and yet could allow him room in the same bed with me! Well, dreams are
pleasant things to people whose humours are so; but to have the spleen,
and to dream upon't, is a punishment I would not wish my greatest enemy.
I seldom dream, or never remember them, unless they have been so sad as
to put me into such disorder as I can hardly recover when I am awake,
and some of those I am confident I shall never forget.

You ask me how I pass my time here. I can give you a perfect account not
only of what I do for the present, but of what I am likely to do this
seven years if I stay here so long. I rise in the morning reasonably
early, and before I am ready I go round the house till I am weary of
that, and then into the garden till it grows too hot for me. About ten
o'clock I think of making me ready, and when that's done I go into my
father's chamber, from whence to dinner, where my cousin Molle and I sit
in great state in a room, and at a table that would hold a great many
more. After dinner we sit and talk till Mr. B. comes in question, and
then I am gone. The heat of the day is spent in reading or working, and
about six or seven o'clock I walk out into a common that lies hard by
the house, where a great many young wenches keep sheep and cows, and sit
in the shade singing of ballads. I go to them and compare their voices
and beauties to some ancient shepherdesses that I have read of, and find
a vast difference there; but, trust me, I think these are as innocent as
those could be. I talk to them, and find they want nothing to make them
the happiest people in the world but the knowledge that they are so.
Most commonly, when we are in the midst of our discourse, one looks
about her, and spies her cows going into the corn, and then away they
all run as if they had wings at their heels. I, that am not so nimble,
stay behind; and when I see them driving home their cattle, I think 'tis
time for me to return too. When I have supped, I go into the garden, and
so to the side of a small river that runs by it, when I sit down and
wish you were with me (you had best say this is not kind neither). In
earnest, 'tis a pleasant place, and would be much more so to me if I had
your company. I sit there sometimes till I am lost with thinking; and
were it not for some cruel thoughts of the crossness of our for