But this is an extraordinary Pleasure for this new Father to hear out of all their prittle pratlings how sweetly they will commend the Quill that hath received all the Colchester Oisters, Cox-combs, Sweetbreads, Lam-stones, and many other such like things, for they have found by experience that such sort of ingredients occasion very much the kindness of men to their wives.  Yes, yes, saies M^{rs}. Luxury it is very good for my husband, and not amiss for any pallate neither, and I’m sure the better I feed my Pig, the better it is for me in the soucing out.  And this discourse then is held up with such an earnestness, and continues so long, that the Child-bed woman almost gets an Ague with it, or at the least falls from one swooning into another, whilest there is not so much as any one that thinks upon her.

Happy is the good man, if he can but act the part of a Ninny, and hath busied himself for the most part in the Kitchin; then he may be now and then admitted to cast in his verdict; otherwise, let them talk as long as they will, he is forced in great misery to afford them audience.  But it is much better for him, if, according as the occasion gives opportunity, there be now and then spoken something concerning the Child-bed woman, or about the shaking of the sheets, which is seldom forgotten; because he is now already so far advanced in the Cony-craft of that School, that he is gotten up to the Water Bucket.

In the mean while Peg runs too and again, almost like one out of her sences, to hunt for the Nurse, who dwels in a little street upon a back-Chamber, or in an Ally, or some other by-place; and she is just now no where else to be found but at t’other end of the City, there keeping another Gentle woman in Child-bed.

Here is now again other fish to fry, for one will not be without her, and t’other must needs have her, each pretending to have an equal right to her.  And the Nurse, finding that each of them so much desires her, thinks no small matter of her self, but that she is as wise as many a Ladies woman or Salomons Cat, and that her fellow is hardly to be found.  But before some few daies are past, there’s a great trial to be made of the Nurses experience and understanding; for, let them do what they will or can, the Child will not suck; yea, and what’s worse, it hath gotten a lamentable Thrush.  Alas a day what bad work is here again, the Nurse is so quamish stomackt that she cannot suck her Mistres, therefore care must be taken to find out some body or other that will come and suck the young womans breasts for twelve pence a time; or else her breasts will grow hard with lumps and fester for want of being drawn.  Or else also with the sucking she gets in the tipples.

Now is the right time to fetch the Apothecary to make ready plaisters, and bring Fennel-water to raise the milk, that the lumps may be driven away; and most especially that the cloves in the tipples may be cured.  Help now or never good M^{r}.  Doctor, for if this continue much longer, the young woman perhaps gets an Ague that may then cost her her life.