nd repaired
to the staircase, where he was heard to talk aloud in an angry tone.

When he came back, he told the company he had been teased by a very
importunate beggar. Addressing himself to our adventurer, "You took
notice," says he, "of a fine lady flaunting about our walk in all the
frippery of the fashion. She was lately a gay young widow that made a
great figure at the court-end of the town; she distinguished herself by
her splendid equipage, her rich liveries, her brilliant assemblies, her
numerous routs, and her elegant taste in dress and furniture. She is
nearly related to some of the best families in England, and, it must be
owned, mistress of many fine accomplishments. But being deficient in
true delicacy, she endeavoured to hide that defect by affectation. She
pretended to a thousand antipathies which did not belong to her nature.
A breast of veal threw her into mortal agonies; if she saw a spider, she
screamed; and at sight of a mouse she fainted away. She could not,
without horror, behold an entire joint of meat; and nothing but
fricassees and other made dishes were seen upon her table. She caused
all her floors to be lined with green baize, that she might trip along
there with more ease and pleasure. Her footmen wore clogs, which were
deposited in the hall, and both they and her chairmen were laid under the
strongest injunctions to avoid porter and tobacco. Her jointure amounted
to eight hundred pounds per annum, and she made shift to spend four times
that sum. At length it was mortgaged for nearly the entire value; but,
far from retrenching, she seemed to increase in extravagance, until her
effects were taken in execution, and her person here deposited in safe
custody.

"When one considers the abrupt transition she underwent from her spacious
apartments to an hovel scarce eight feet square; from sumptuous furniture
to bare benches; from magnificence to meanness; from affluence to extreme
poverty; one would imagine she must have been totally overwhelmed by such
a sudden gush of misery. But this was not the case. She has, in fact,
no delicate feelings. She forthwith accommodated herself to the exigency
of her fortune; yet she still affects to keep state amidst the miseries
of a jail; and this affectation is truly ridiculous. She lies a-bed till
two o'clock in the afternoon. She maintains a female attendant for the
sole purpose of dressing her person. Her cabin is the least cleanly in
the w