nd now, madam,"
says she at the end of her letter, "you have nothing to do but to come
hither and set up a coach and a good equipage, and if beauty and a good
fortune won't make you a duchess, nothing will." But I had not fixed my
measures yet. I had no inclination to be a wife again. I had had such
bad luck with my first husband, I hated the thoughts of it. I found
that a wife is treated with indifference, a mistress with a strong
passion; a wife is looked upon as but an upper servant, a mistress is a
sovereign; a wife must give up all she has, have every reserve she makes
for herself be thought hard of, and be upbraided with her very
pin-money, whereas a mistress makes the saying true, that what the man
has is hers, and what she has is her own; the wife bears a thousand
insults, and is forced to sit still and bear it, or part, and be undone;
a mistress insulted helps herself immediately, and takes another.

These were my wicked arguments for whoring, for I never set against them
the difference another way--I may say, every other way; how that, first,
a wife appears boldly and honourably with her husband, lives at home,
and possesses his house, his servants, his equipages, and has a right to
them all, and to call them her own; entertains his friends, owns his
children, and has the return of duty and affection from them, as they
are here her own, and claims upon his estate, by the custom of England,
if he dies and leaves her a widow.

The whore skulks about in lodgings, is visited in the dark, disowned
upon all occasions before God and man; is maintained, indeed, for a
time, but is certainly condemned to be abandoned at last, and left to
the miseries of fate and her own just disaster. If she has any
children, her endeavour is to get rid of them, and not maintain them;
and if she lives, she is certain to see them all hate her, and be
ashamed of her. While the vice rages, and the man is in the devil's
hand, she has him; and while she has him, she makes a prey of him; but
if he happens to fall sick, if any disaster befalls him, the cause of
all lies upon her. He is sure to lay all his misfortunes at her door;
and if once he comes to repentance, or makes but one step towards a
reformation, he begins with her--leaves her, uses her as she deserves,
hates her, abhors her, and sees her no more; and that with this
never-failing addition, namely, that the more sincere and unfeigned his
repentance is, the more earnestly he looks