What are your fine gentlemen fit for else? You know, that,
with all my faults, I have a domestic and managing turn. A man should
encourage that in a wife, and not be perpetually teasing her for her
company abroad, unless he did it with a view to keep her at home. Our
sex don't love to be prescribed to, even in the things from which they
are not naturally averse: and for this very reason, perhaps, because it
becomes us to submit to prescription. Human nature, Harriet, is a
perverse thing. I believe, if my good man wished me to stay at home, I
should torture my brain, as other good wives do, for inventions to go
abroad.
It was but yesterday, that in order to give him a hint, I pinned my apron
to his coat, without considering who was likely to be a sufferer by it;
and he, getting up, in his usual nimble way, gave it a rent, and then
looked behind him with so much apprehension--Hands folded, eyes goggling,
bag in motion from shoulder to shoulder. I was vexed too much to make
the use of the trick which I had designed, and huffed him. He made
excuses, and looked pitifully; bringing in his soul, to testify that he
knew not how it could be. How it could be! Wretch! When you are always
squatting upon one's clothes, in defiance of hoop, or distance.
He went out directly, and brought me in two aprons, either of which was
worth twenty of that he so carelessly rent.
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