CHAPTER I.The Character of John Bull's Mother.*.
* The Church of England.
John had a mother whom he loved and honoured extremely, a discreet, grave, sober, good-conditioned, cleanly old gentlewoman as ever lived.
She was none of your cross-grained, termagant, scolding jades that one had as good be hanged as live in the house with, such as are always censuring the conduct and telling scandalous stories of their neighbours, extolling their own good qualities and undervaluing those of others.

On the contrary, she was of a meek spirit, and, as she was strictly virtuous herself, so she always put the best construction upon the words and actions of her neighbours, except where they were irreconcileable to the rules of honesty and decency.

She was neither one of your precise prudes, nor one of your fantastical old belles that dress themselves like girls of fifteen; as she neither wore a ruff, forehead-cloth, nor high-crowned hat, so she had laid aside feathers, flowers, and crimpt ribbons in her head-dress, furbelow-scarfs, and hooped-petticoats.

She scorned to patch and paint, yet she loved to keep her hands and her face clean.

Though she wore no flaunting laced ruffles, she would not keep herself in a constant sweat with greasy flannel.