exactly as a lady does to her sweetheart in a stage-play, which I have
seen in Covent Garden, while she wanted him to be no better than he
should be.

"If madam be mad, I shall not care for staying long in the family; so I
heartily wish you could get me a place, either at the squire's, or some
other neighbouring gentleman's, unless it be true that you are going to
be married to parson Williams, as folks talk, and then I should be very
willing to be his clerk; for which you know I am qualified, being able
to read and to set a psalm.

"I fancy I shall be discharged very soon; and the moment I am, unless I
hear from you, I shall return to my old master's country-seat, if it be
only to see parson Adams, who is the best man in the world. London is a
bad place, and there is so little good fellowship, that the next-door
neighbours don't know one another. Pray give my service to all friends
that inquire for me. So I rest

"Your loving brother,

"JOSEPH ANDREWS."

As soon as Joseph had sealed and directed this letter he walked
downstairs, where he met Mrs. Slipslop, with whom we shall take this
opportunity to bring the reader a little better acquainted. She was a
maiden gentlewoman of about forty-five years of age, who, having made a
small slip in her youth, had continued a good maid ever since. She was
not at this time remarkably handsome; being very short, and rather too
corpulent in body, and somewhat red, with the addition of pimples in the
face. Her nose was likewise rather too large, and her eyes too little;