nomers call them the Twelve Signs, because, as I said before, they sign or mark out the Place of the Sun in the Heavens; and also why the Astrologers called them Houses, because they assigned them as Dwellings or Places of Abode for the Planets:
O! said she, now you talk of Astrology, I must ask you a few Questions about that either now or some other Time; for I long to know whether there be any thing in that Art or no; for I think I have heard you throw out some suspicious Words about it.
Madam, said I, if you please to go on with your Astronomy, you will soon know enough to despise that vain and foolish Cheat, as a thing perfectly beneath your Enquiry into.
Very well, said she, and so if I will be an Astronomer, it seems, I must at once bid adieu to that darling Pleasure of our Sex, Curiosity, and the Desire of knowing our Fortunes; this is very hard, and you are really, Sir, a very bad Woman's-Man; you have Philosophised me out of many a fair Pleasure already; Censure, Satyr and Gossipping are almost gone; and must dear Inquisitiveness follow themtoo?
