an streams. Around her lay heaps of books, globes,
quadrants, telescopes, and other learned apparatus; her snuff-box stood
at her right hand: at her left hand lay her handkerchief, sufficiently
used, and a convenience to spit in appeared on one side of her chair.
She being in a reverie when we entered, the maid did not think proper
to disturb her; so that we waited some minutes unobserved, during which
time she bit the quill several times, altered her position, made many
wry faces, and, at length, with an air of triumph, repeated aloud:

"Nor dare th'immortal gods my rage oppose!"

Having committed her success to paper, she turned towards the door,
and perceiving us, cried, "What's the matter?" "Here's the young man,"
replied my conductress, "whom Mrs. Sagely recommended as a footman
to your ladyship." On this information she stared in my face for a
considerable time, and then asked my name, which I thought proper
to conceal under that of John Brown. After having surveyed me with
a curious eye, she broke out into, "O! ay, thou wast shipwrecked, I
remember. Whether didst thou come on shore on the back of a whale or a
dolphin?" To this I answered, I had swam ashore without any assistance.
Then she demanded to know if I had ever been at the Hellespont, and swam
from Sestos to Abydos. I replied in the negative; upon which she bade
the maid order a suit of new livery for me, and instruct me in the
articles of my duty: so she spit in her snuff-box, and wiped her nose
with her cap, which lay on the table, instead of a handkerchief.

We returned to the kitchen, where I was regaled by the maids, who seemed
to vie with each other in expressing their regard for me; and from them
I understood, that my business consisted in cleaning knives and forks,
laying the cloth, waiting at table, carrying messages, and attending my
lady when she went abroad. There was a very good suit of livery in the
house, which had belonged to my predecessor deceased, and it fitted
me exactly; so that there was no occasion for employing a tailor on my
account. I had not been long equipped in this manner, when my lady's
bell rung; upon which, I ran up stairs, and found her stalking about
the room in her shift and under petticoat only; I would immediately have
retired as became me, but she bade me come in, and air a clean shift for
her; which operation I having performed with some backwardness, she put
it on before me without any ceremony, and I verily belie