Page:A Treatise concerning the Use and Abuse of the Marriage Bed.djvu/374

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otherwise to dispose of it, so that they should never be at all the better for it, and that it was too late now to persuade her, for she was fixed in her Measures; and the Reasons being such as could not be answered, her Neices had nothing to do but to consider of some other Ways to maintain themselves, for she had no more to say to them.

This was dismal News to the two Girls; but they had no Remedy, so they shifted as they could; we have no more to say about them.

The old Lady, according to her Resolution, as above, put off her House, and went into the Country where her Estate lay, and dwelt with one of her Tenants in the Country; here she liv'd perfectly retir'd, and attended only with one Servant; and by this Time she was about sixty-five Years old, but of a sound, hail Constitution, a chearful, easy Disposition, calm Temper, and all the happy Tokens of long Life.

It happened one Day, talking seriously with her Tenant, a good honest plain Man, but a Man of Sense, and particularly of abundance of religious Knowledge, she made her Complaint to him, how unkindly she had been treated by her Nieces, and how she had resented it, and was resolved, as above, that none of them should be the better for her.

The good Man exhorted and persuaded her to forgive the young Women, to consider they were young and gay, and wanted Discretion, and that, no doubt, they would carry it otherwise to her now, if she would receive them again; he added the Command of our Saviour, to forgive Enemies, and our offending Brother; and so pleaded often with her for the two poorCast-off