not care a straw if his soul were at the bottom of hell; nor do his own kindred care any more than she:  for when it went hardest with him, instead of giving him good counsel and earnestly praying for mercy upon him, they were talking of his property, his will or his pedigree; or what a handsome robust man he was, and such talk; and now this wailing {21a} on the part of some is for mere ceremony and custom, on the part of others for company’s sake or for pay.”

Scarcely had these gone by than another throng came in sight:  a most gallant lord with his lady at his side, slowly advancing in state, to whom many men of position doffed, and many were on tiptoe with eagerness to show him obeisance and reverence.  “Here is a noble lord,” said I, “who is worthy such respect from all these!” “Wert thou to take everything to consideration thou wouldst speak differently.  This lord comes from the Street of Pleasure, she is of the Street of Pride, and yon old man who is conversing with him comes from the Street of Lucre, and has a mortgage on almost every acre of my lord’s, and is come to-day to complete the loan.”  We drew nigh to hear the conversation.  “In sooth, sir,” Old Money-bags was saying, “I would not for all that I possess that you should lack anything which lies in my power to enable you to appear your own true self this day, especially seeing that you have met so beautiful and lovely a lady as madam here” (the wily dog knowing full well what she was).  “By the —–­ by the —–­ ,” said the lord, “next to gazing at her beauty, my greatest pleasure was to hearken to your fair reasons; I had liefer pay you interest than get money elsewhere free.”  “Indeed, my lord,” said one of his chief friends called Flatterer, “nuncle pays you not a whit less respect than is due to you, but an it please you, he has bestowed upon her ladyship scarce the half her mead of praise.  I defy any man,” quoth he, “to show a lovelier woman in all the Street of Pride, or a nobler than you in all the Street of Pleasure, or a kinder than you, good mine uncle, in all the Street of Lucre.”  “Ah, that is your good opinion,” said my lord, “but I cannot believe that any couple were ever more united in the bonds of love than we twain.”  As they went on the crowd increased, and everyone had a pleasant smile and low bow for the other, and hastened to salute each other with their noses to the ground, like a pair of gamecocks on the point of striking.  “Know then,” said the Angel, “that thou hast seen naught of civility nor heard one word which Hypocrisy has not taught.  There is no one here, after all this gentleness, who has a hap’orth of love one to another, yea, many of them are sworn foes.  This lord is the butt {23a} of everybody, and all have their dig at him.  The lady looks only to his greatness and high degree, so that she may thereby ascend a step above many of her neighbours.  Old Money-bags has his eye on my lord’s lands for his own son, and all the others on the money he