I passed out of the first court, into the maids’ quarter, which was the very strongest part of the whole building; and so’t had need; for divers of the young wenches were so extravagant and furious, that no other place would have held them. (The wives and widows were in another room apart.) Here ye should have one, sobbing and raging with jealousy of a rival. There another, stark mad for a husband, and inwardly bleeding because she durst not discover it. A third was writing of letters all riddle and mystery, mending and marring, till at last the paper had more blots than whole words in it. Some were practising in the glass the gracious smile, the roll of the eye, the velvet lip, etc. Others again were in a diet of oatmeal, clay, chalk, coal, hard wax, and the like. Some were conditioning with their servants for a ball, or a serenade, that the whole town might ring of the address. “Yes, yes,” they cried, “you can go to the park with this lady, and to a play with that lady, and to Banstead with t’other lady, and spend whole nights at beste or ombre with my Lady Pen-Tweezel; but by my troth, I think you are ashamed to be seen in my company.” Some I saw upon the very point of sealing and delivering. “I am thine,” cries one, “and thine alone, or let all the devils in hell, etc. But be sure you be constant.” “If I be not,” says he, “let my soul,” etc., and the silly jade believes him. In one corner ye should have them praying for husbands, that they might the better love at random; in another, nothing would please them but to be married men’s wives, and this disease was looked upon as a little desperate. Some again stood ready furnished with love letters and tickets to be cast out at the window, or thrust under the door, and these were looked upon not only as fools but beasts.