The next quarter was that of the grave and wise, the right reverend widows, women in appearance of marvellous severity and reserve, and yet every one of them had her weak side, and ye might read her folly and distemper through her disguise. One of them I saw crying with one eye for the loss of one husband, and laughing with t’other upon him that was to come next. Another, with the Ephesian matron, was solacing herself with her gallant before her husband was thorough cold in the mouth, considering, that he that died half an hour ago is as dead as William the Conqueror. There were several others passing to and again, quite out of their mourning, that looked so demurely (I warrant ye) as if butter would not have melted in their mouths, and yet apostate widows (as I was told) and there they were kept as strictly, as if they had been in the Spanish Inquisition. Some were laying wagers whose mourning was most _à la mode_, and best made, or whose peak or veil became her best, and setting themselves off with a thousand tricks of ornament and dress. The widows I observed that were marching off, with the mark out of their mouths, were hugely concerned to be thought young, and still talking of masks, balls, fiddles, treats; chanting and jigging to every tune they heard, and all upon the hoity-toity like mad wenches of fifteen. The younger, on the other side, made use of their time and took pleasure while ’twas to be had. There were too of the religious strain; a people much at their beads, and in private; and these were there in the quality of love heretics, or platonics, and under the penance of perpetual abstinence from the flesh they loved best (which is the most mortifying Lent of all other). Some, that had skill in perspective, were before the glass with their boxes of patch and paint about them; shadowing, drawing out, refreshing, and in short, covering and palliating, all the imperfections of feature and complexion, every one after her own humour. Now these women were absolutely insufferable, for they were most of them old and headstrong, having got the better of their husbands, so that they would be taking upon them to domineer here, as they had done at home; and indeed, they found the master of the college enough to do.