BULL .-- Really, husband, you went through a very notable course.
JOHN BULL .-- One of the things that first alarmed me was that they showed a spite against my poor old mother.* "Lord," quoth I, "what makes you so jealous of a poor, old, innocent gentlewoman, that minds only her prayers and her Practice of Piety?
She never meddles in any of your concerns." "Fob," say they, "to see a handsome, brisk, genteel young fellow so much governed by a doting old woman! Do you consider she keeps you out of a good jointure?
She has the best of your estate settled upon her for a rent-charge.

Hang her, old thief! turn her out of doors, seize her lands, and let her go to law if she dares." "Soft and fair, gentlemen," quoth I; "my mother's my mother, our family are not of an unnatural temper.

Though I don't take all her advice, I won't seize her jointure; long may she enjoy it, good woman; I don't grudge it her.

She allows me now and then a brace of hundreds for my lawsuit; that's pretty fair." About this time the old gentlewoman fell ill of an odd sort of a distemper.** * Railing against the Church.
** Carelessness in forms and discipline.
It began with a coldness and numbness in her limbs, which by degrees affected the nerves (I think the physicians call them), seized the brain, and at last ended in a lethargy.

It betrayed itself at first in a sort of indifference and carelessness in all her actions, coldness to her best friends, and an aversion to stir or go about the common offices of life.