O how happy you are! & what pleasures doth the married estate provide for you! how glad must your wife be now! how strictly she reckons the months, nay the very weeks and days!  O what an unexpressible love hath she for you now! and with what imbraces and kisses she entertains you, because you have furnish’d her shop so well!  Now you may perceive that the procreating of children, makes the band of wedlock much stronger, and increaseth the affections.

Now were it well time, that by death either of the good woman or the Child, that you did, by a will, seek the mortification of the disadvantagious Contract of marriage; and by that means get all there is to your self, in place of going back to her friends and relations; But, alas, she hath so much in her head at present, that there is no speaking to her about it, without being a great trouble to her:  besides her sences cannot now bear it therefore you must let it alone till another time.

Do you your self but observe, & you’l quickly see that a lying-in requireth so much trimming, that she hath really care enough upon her! the Child-bed linnen alone, is a thing that would make ones head full of dizziness, it consists of so many sorts of knick-knacks; I will not so much as name all the other jinkombobs that are dependances to it.  Therefore, ought you to be so compassionate with her, as not to speak to her about any other thing; for all her mind and sences are so imploied upon that subject, that she can think upon nothing else but her down-lying.  Hear but deliberately to all her lying-in, and of what belongs to it.  Tis no wonder neither for there is not one of her acquaintance comes to her, either woman or maid, but they presently ask her, Well, Mistris, when do you reckon?  And that is a Text then, so full of matter that there is oftentimes three or four hours preacht upon it, before any of the Auditors be weary.  O that all Ministers were so happy, as to have alwaies such earnest and serious hearers.  In the mean while there is no body happier than the maids, for they are then free from being the Town-talk; for at other times, the first word is, How do you like your maid? which is another Text that the women generally preach out of, and make longest sermons in.

But methinks, I should happen to fall here from the Mistris upon the Maid.

To go forward then.  See how serious your dearest is, with Jane the Semstress, contriving how much linnen she must buy to make all her Child-bed linnen as it ought to be! how diligently she measures the Beds, Bellibands, Navel clouts, shirts, and all other trincom, trancoms! and she keeps as exact an account of the ells, half ells, quarters, and lesser measures, as if she had gone seven years to school to learn casting of an account.

Let this measuring and reckoning be pleasant to you, because the charge thereof will fall costly enough for you.  To morrow she goes to market, to buy two or three pieces of linnen, one whereof must be very fine, and the other a little courser.  And you need not take any notice what quantity of fine small Laces she hath occasion for, by reason it might perhaps overcloud this sixth pleasure of marriage, which you now possess.