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I was ever of opinion that the honest man who married and brought up a large family did more service than he who continued single and only talked of population. From this motive, I had scarce taken orders a year before I began to think seriously of matrimony, 5 and chose my wife, as she did her wedding-gown, not for a fine glossy surface, but such qualities as would wear well. To do her justice, she was a good-natured, notable woman; and as for breeding, there were few country ladies who could show more. She could read 10 any English book without much spelling; but for pickling, preserving, and cookery, none could excel her. She prided herself also upon being an excellent contriver in housekeeping; though I could never find that we grew richer with all her contrivances.

However, we loved each other tenderly, and our fondness increased as we grew old. There was, in fact, nothing that could make us angry with the world or each

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other. We had an elegant house, situated in a fine country, and a good neighbourhood. The year was spent in a moral or rural amusement; in visiting our rich neighbours and relieving such as were poor. We 5 had no revolutions to fear nor fatigues to undergo; all our adventures were by the fireside, and all our migrations from the blue bed to the brown.

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As we lived near the road, we often had the traveller or stranger visit us to taste our gooseberry wine, for 10 which we had great reputation; and I profess, with the veracity of an historian, that I never knew one of them find fault with it. Our cousins, too, even to the fortieth remove, all remembered their affinity, without any help from the herald's office, and came very frequently to see Some of them did us no great honour by these claims of kindred; as we had the blind, the maimed, and the halt among the number. However, my wife always insisted that, as they were the same flesh and blood, they should sit with us at the same table. So that if we had 20 not very rich, we generally had very happy friends about us; for this remark will hold good through life, that the poorer the guest, the better pleased he ever is with being treated and as some men gaze with admiration at the colours of a tulip or the wing of a butterfly, so I was by 25 nature an admirer of happy human faces. However, when any one of our relations was found to be a person of very bad character, a troublesome guest, or one we desired to get rid of, upon his leaving my house I ever took care to lend him a riding-coat, or a pair of boots, 30 or sometimes a horse of small value, and I always had

the satisfaction of finding he never came back to return

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