Another said yet better, how that a woman was like chickens, which do get the pip and die thereof, if they be stinted of water and have not enough to drink. A woman is the same, which doth breed the pip and oft die thereof, if they are not frequently given to drink; only ’tis something else than spring water it must have. Another fair lady was used to say she was like a good garden, which not content with the rain of heaven only, doth ask water of the gardener as well, to be made more fruitful thereby. Another would say she would fain resemble those good economists and excellent managers which do never give out all their property to be guided and a profit earned to one agent alone, but do divide it among several hands. One alone could not properly suffice to get good value. After a similar fashion was she for managing herself, to make the best thereof and for herself to reap the highest enjoyment. I have heard of yet another lady which had a most ill-favoured lover, and a very handsome husband and of a good grace, the lady herself being likewise very well-looking. One of her chiefest lady friends and gossips remonstrating with her and asking why she did not choose a handsomer lover, “Know you not,” she said, “that to cultivate well a piece of land more than one labourer is wanted, and as a rule the best-looking and most dainty be not the most meet workers, but the most rustical and hardy?” Another lady I knew, which had a very ill-favoured husband and of a very evil grace, did choose a lover as foul as he; and when one of her friends did ask her the reason why, “’Tis the better,” quoth she, “to accustom me to mine husband’s ugliness.”