That she is not a woman of science, my father would say is her miffortune-but she might ask a question.

My mother never did. In short, she went out of the world at last without knowing whether it turned round, or stood still. -My father had officiously told her above a thousand times which way it was,--but she always forgot.

For these reasons a discourse feldom went on much further betwixt chem, than a proposition, ---a reply, and a rejoinder ; at the end of which, it generally took breath for a few minutes, (as in the affair of the breeches) and then went on again.

1

If he marries, 'twill be the worse for us,-quoth my mother.

Not a cherry-stone, faid my father, he may as well bacter away his means upon that, as any thing else.

To be sure, faid my mother : so here ended the proposition,--the reply, - and the rejoinder, I told you

of.

It will be fome amusement to him,

my

father.

too, said

A very great one, answered my mother, if he [hould have children.

Lord have mercy upon meg faid my

father to himself

*

CH A P. CHAP. XL.

Am now beginning to get fairly into

my work; and by the help of a vegitable diet, with a few of the cold feeds, I make no doubt but I shall be able to go on with my uncle Toby's story, and my own, in a tolerable straight line. Now,

۔

whole Sunt

These were the four lines I moved in through my first, second, third, and fourth volumes. In the fifth volume I have been very good, the precise line I have described in it being this :

129

By which it appears, that except at the
curve, marked A. where I took a trip
to Navarre,--and the indented curve B.
which is the short airing when I was.
there with the Lady Bausiere and her
page, I have not taken the least frisk
of a digression, till Jonne de la Cafe's
devils led me the round you see marked
D.--for as for cccc c they are nothing
but parentheses, and the common ins
and outs incident to the lives of the great-
est ministers of state ; and when com-

pared

pared with what men have done, or with my own transgressions at the letters ABD-they vanish into nothing.

In this last volume I have done better still--for from the end of Le Fever's episode, to the beginning of my uncle Toby's campaigns,- I have scarce stepped a yard out of my way.

If I mend at this rate, it is not impossible by the good leave of his grace of Benevento's devils but I may arrive hereafter at the excellency of going on even thus ;

which is a line drawn as straight as I could draw it, by a writing-master's ruler, (borrowed for that purpose) turning neither to the right hand or to the lefc.

This