Page:A Treatise concerning the Use and Abuse of the Marriage Bed.djvu/55

This page has been validated.

[ 41 ]

The Gentleman stood pretty patiently a good while, and bore it all, better than they that knew him expected he should, considering he was very drunk, till the Lady giving her Passions a full vent, fell upon him in a down-right scold, and ended it with a forbidding him to wait upon her any more, that is to say, bad him give himself no farther trouble about her, for she had enough of him, and the like.

Thus far, I say, he held it very well, considering his Condition: But when she came to that Part, he looked steadily at her, and with a smiling pleasant Countenance, contrary to his usual Custom when he had been drinking, he turns to her, Ha Madam! says he, are you so hot and in such a rage! Pray, have you been drinking too? That put her quite mad; and she reviled him, told him she scorn'd him, and his Question too, that she would have him be informed she was no such Person, and a great deal more. No Madam! says he, are you not in drink, and yet can be in such a Rage? Are you so Passionate as this when you are sober? whereas, you see, I can be such a patient Dog when I am drunk; why then, Madam, says he, in good Faith, I'll take you at your word, for you are not fit to make a Wife for me. So he takes a Glass of Wine, and drinks to her better Fortune, bad her good buy, and immediately, paying his Respects to the Gentleman of the House, he walks out, and goes away.

If she was angry before, she was calm, perfectly calm, and surprized to the last degree, to see her self treated so soberly by a Man that was hardly himself; and that she was rejected in earnest, whereas she had rejected him but in

a kind