kindness. I would not let her go on, but told her I had
more to say to her still than all this, but that I would let it alone
till another time. My meaning was about the box of plate, good part of
which I gave her, and some I gave to Amy; for I had so much plate, and
some so large, that I thought if I let my husband see it he might be apt
to wonder what occasion I could ever have for so much, and for plate of
such a kind too; as particularly a great cistern for bottles, which cost
a hundred and twenty pounds, and some large candlesticks too big for any
ordinary use. These I caused Amy to sell; in short, Amy sold above three
hundred pounds' worth of plate; what I gave the Quaker was worth above
sixty pounds, and I gave Amy above thirty pounds' worth, and yet I had a
great deal left for my husband.

Nor did our kindness to the Quaker end with the forty pounds a year, for
we were always, while we stayed with her, which was above ten months,
giving her one good thing or another; and, in a word, instead of lodging
with her, she boarded with us, for I kept the house, and she and all
her family ate and drank with us, and yet we paid her the rent of the
house too; in short, I remembered my widowhood, and I made this widow's
heart glad many a day the more upon that account.

And now my spouse and I began to think of going over to Holland, where I
had proposed to him to live, and in order to settle all the
preliminaries of our future manner of living, I began to draw in my
effects, so as to have them all at command upon whatever occasion we
thought fit; after which, one morning I called my spouse up to me: "Hark
ye, sir," said I to him, "I have two very weighty questions to ask of
you. I don't know what answer you will give to the first, but I doubt
you will be able to give but a sorry answer to the other, and yet, I
assure you, it is of the last importance to yourself, and towards the
future part of your life, wherever it is to be."

He did not seem to be much alarmed, because he could see I was speaking
in a kind of merry way. "Let's hear your questions, my dear," says he,
"and I'll give the best answer I can to them." "Why, first," says I:

"I. You have married a wife here, made her a lady, and put her in
expectation of being something else still when she comes abroad. Pray
have you examined whether you are able to supply all her extravagant
demands when she comes abroad, and maintain an expensive Englishwoman in
all her pr