t, and would lift up their eyes to heaven at the
confidence of the saucy minx, when they found she was an honest
tradesman's daughter. It is impossible to describe the pious
indignation that would rise in them at the sight of a man who lived
plentifully on an estate of his own getting. They were transported
with zeal beyond measure, if they heard of a young woman's matching
into a great family upon account only of her beauty, her merit, or
her money. In short, there was not a female within ten miles of them
that was in possession of a gold watch, a pearl necklace, or a piece
of Mechlin lace, but they examined her title to it.

My aunt Martha used to chide me very frequently for not sufficiently
valuing myself. She would not eat a bit all dinner-time, if at an
invitation she found she had been seated below herself; and would
frown upon me for an hour together, if she saw me give place to any
man under a baronet. As I was once talking to her of a wealthy citizen
whom she had refused in her youth, she declared to me with great
warmth, that she preferred a man of quality in his shirt to the
richest man upon the change in a coach and six. She pretended that our
family was nearly related by the mother's side to half a dozen peers;
but as none of them knew anything of the matter, we always kept it as
a secret among ourselves. A little before her death, she was reciting
to me the history of my forefathers; but dwelling a little longer than
ordinary upon the actions of Sir Gilbert Ironside, who had a horse
shot under him at Edgehill fight, I gave an unfortunate _pish_! and
asked, "What was all this to me?" upon which she retired to her closet
and fell a-scribbling for three hours together; in which time, as I
afterwards found, she struck me out of her will, and left all that she
had to my sister Margaret, a wheedling baggage, that used to be asking
questions about her great-grandfather from morning to night. She now
lies buried among the family of the Ironsides, with a stone over her,
acquainting the reader that she died at the age of eighty years, a
spinster, and that she was descended of the ancient family of the
Ironsides; after which follows the genealogy drawn up by her own hand.

IV

SIR ROGER AND HIS HOME[118]

The first of our society is a gentleman of Worcestershire, of ancient
descent, a baronet, his name Sir Roger de Coverley. His
great-grandfather was inventor of that famous country-dance which is
called