Postmistress

“ When my mistress heard this, she exclaimed, “The mercy of God the Most High be upon her! Indeed, she hath delivered thee from me, for I had it in mind to do thee a mischief, but now I will not hurt thee nor trouble thee.” I wondered at this and said to her, “What then didst thou purpose to do with me, and we lovers?” Quoth she, “Thou art infatuated with me; for thou art young and witless; thy heart is free from guile and thou knowest not our perfidy and malice. Were she yet alive, she would protect thee, for she is the cause of thy preservation and hath delivered thee from destruction. ”

“ Though so far apart, a kindred chord was struck between mistress and maid. The high spirit that smouldered in these two never crossed; but with the smallest tangible demonstration they were fast friends. The girl's horizon now bordered a triune interest;—the church, the mistress, and the parlor floor. Gaunt and spare, she trod her beat. Shy of manner, with eyes looking nowhere, she seemed a human machine of the broom. A woman without kith or kin, without a history, and apparently without a memory. ”

“ I found that a wife is treated with indifference, a mistress with a strong passion; a wife is looked upon as but an upper servant, a mistress is a sovereign; a wife must give up all she has, have every reserve she makes for herself be thought hard of, and be upbraided with her very pin-money, whereas a mistress makes the saying true, that what a man has is hers, and what she has is her own; the wife bears a thousand insults and is forced to sit still and bear it or part and be undone, a mistress insulted helps herself immediately and takes another. ”

“ I hasten, therefore, to take a few small things out of the bag, which are absolutely necessary for me, and leave it at the post-house, which we are just now passing—and, in passing, it may be told that the post-mistress is a peasant woman, who carries on the business with good management and skill, since the death of her husband. ”

“ O Mistress, Mistress, Reptile mistress, Your eye is very dark, very bright, And it never softens Although you watch. She knows, She knows well enough to come for food, Yet she sees me not; Her bright eye sees, but not me, not anything, Sightful, sightless, seeing and visionless, Reptile mistress. Taking bread in her curved, gaping, toothless mouth, She has no qualm when she catches my finger in her steel overlapping gums, But she hangs on, and my shout and my shrinking are nothing to her, She does not even know she is nipping me with her curved beak. ”

“ But at his departure, he scarce forgets to double his generosity to the maid, as she gives her promise of further services to him. Nor is the young baggage worse than her word, for she too well knows her own interest: and therefore, in about a day or two, Dear Mistress, says she, you cannot imagine where I have been this morning! No, says the young gentlewoman how should I? Why, says she, I have been at the conjuror’s, but you cannot think what a man he is! I did but ask whether such a gentleman courted my mistress? ”

“ By any means, madam, give him leave to love: and you are resolved to walk tied up in your own arms, with your love as visible in your face as your mistress's colours in your hat; that any porter at Charing Cross may take you like a letter at the carrier's, and having read the superscription, deliver Master Sad to the fair hands of Mistress or My Lady Such-a-one, lying at the sign of the Hard Heart.
Plea. And she, if she has wit (as I believe she hath) , will scarce pay the post for the packet. ”

“ The master is dead: the mistress is an old woman, hardened and repulsive, the embodiment of all that is evil, who is counting coppers in a room filled with bush, skulls, sacrifices, and charms. A number of half-starved cowed women and girls covered with dirt and sores are quarrelling over a pipe. The shrill voice and long arms of the mistress settle the matter, and make them fly helter- skelter. They call on Mary to speak, and after many interruptions she subdues and controls them, and leaves them, for the moment, impressed. ”

“ At that moment, he came in, unawares, and seeing her kiss my cheek, turned away in anger, vowing eternal separation and repeating the following verses:
If any share with me in her I love, incontinent, I'll cast her
off from me and be to live alone content.
A mistress, sure, is nothing worth, if, in the way of love, She
wish for aught but that to which the lover doth consent.
And from that time to this, O Ibn Mensour," continued she, "he hath neither written to me nor answered my letters." "And what thinkest thou to do?" asked I. Quoth she, "I have a mind to send him a letter by thee. ”

“ I won’t be your mistress, because I don’t love you, and even if I did love you a little, I wouldn’t be your mistress, because I could never love you as much as I loved my husband and I wouldn’t do anything to hurt his child and mine. ”

“ MISTRESS FORD.
Mistress Page is come with me, sweetheart.
FALSTAFF.
Divide me like a bribed buck, each a haunch. I will keep my sides to myself, my shoulders for the fellow of this walk, and my horns I bequeath your husbands. Am I a woodman, ha? Speak I like Herne the hunter? Why, now is Cupid a child of conscience; he makes restitution. As I am a true spirit, welcome! ”

“ Before he had the confidence to court her, he pretended to the Servants and others, that he did so, and this was out of Pollicie to hinder the Courtships of all others. So that by that time his Mistress understood and knew his pretensions, all others did talk of the time of his Marriage: One, in his fancie, appointing at such a time, and another at such a time: so that he letting his Mistress know his passion, as he termed it, she heard that all her Servants, nay, and some of her Friends talked so freely of it, as if they seemed to allow of it. ”

“ The life of a courtesan endured by a true woman. My soul is mine, my spirit and my intellect, but these are chained to a body that I abandon to others—whom I have abandoned, thank God! for I am satiated at length and have now no lover, nor do I desire one. I desire to be my own mistress, in short, and not the mistress of any person. I have but one desire, hear—"
"What?" asked Guy, who was deeply moved by this outburst of anger and suffering, this cry of pain that declared itself involuntarily, his feelings vacillating between doubt and pity. ”

“ There are two ways of regarding one's wife—either as a mistress passionately adored, or as a highly valued friend. For a long while my heart cherished you as the former of these endearing relations; faults on my part, I will not attempt to deny, have deprived me of the inestimable privilege of ranking as your lover, leaving me but the cold shadow of my former happiness under the title of your friend. To pass from the ardent lover to the sober reality of friendship is a bitter struggle, when she we love, though bound by wedded ties, is charming and captivating as a mistress. ”

“ PIP. Mistress, I can tell ye one thing, my master's wench
Will come home to-day to dinner.
Enter JUSTICE REASON, and his man HUGH.
MRS ART. She shall be welcome, if she be his guest.
But here's some of our guests are come already:
A chair for Justice Reason, sirrah!
JUS. Good morrow, Mistress Arthur! you are like a good housewife:
At your request I am come home. What, a chair!
Thus age seeks ease. Where is your husband, mistress?
What, a cushion, too!
PIP. I pray you, ease your tail, sir.
JUS. Marry, and will, good fellow; twenty thanks.
[HUGH and PIPKIN converse apart.] ”

“ The mistress requires a solemn promise that the servant will come on a certain day, and as often as not the day arrives without her. Our young lady has been round to a number of mistresses and 'priced' their places; she will not wilfully put you in a quandary, but if, after having engaged herself to you, she hears of another situation where there is less work or more wages, she takes it in preference, and leaves you to manage as best you can. ”

“ My house seemed intended for keeping a mistress with all decency, and as I had the virtue of constancy a mistress was all I wanted to make me happy. But how was I to find a woman who should be the equal of those women I had loved before? ”

“ But the men in front made no show of compliance, and one burly fellow laid hands on my bridle reins and on Alison’s, staring impudently into my face.
“Body o’ the Pope!” says he. “What have we here? Whither away so fast, my pretty gentleman, with mistress madam? I’ faith, art come at the right time if thou wishest a score of proper fellows to drink her health.”
“Good friend,” says I, very anxious to keep my temper, [282] “I wish naught but to proceed upon my way with as much speed as possible. We are on business of importance, and have no time for aught that would hinder us.” ”

“ And withal she carried her haughtiness in everything to the farthest point; her last word was always "the mistress"--for "the mistress" nothing was good enough--"the mistress" would not be pleased with this or with that--"the mistress" might permit herself things which no one else could venture on, and many another such provocation.
Every day she dressed herself as if it were Sunday, and had new clothes made, and even a silver necklace brought from Vent with all sorts of pendants in filigree-work, so heavy and costly that the like had never before been seen in the valley. ”

“ When a lady enters the harem, the mistress rises, takes her hand, presses it to her bosom, kisses, and makes her sit down by her side; a slave hastens to take her black mantle; she is entreated to be at ease, quits her veil, and discovers a floating robe tied round her waist with a sash, which perfectly displays her shape. She then receives compliments according to their manner: “Why, my mother, or my sister, have you been so long absent? We sighed to see you! Your presence is an honor to our house! It is the happiness of our lives!” ”

“ Right might kick at being called upon to shoulder the encumbrances of others, she had snatched the special license from her young mistress, torn it into bits, flung it into the foxy face and blazed into a big-hearted, big-minded, all-understanding little tweeny maid of a woman. ”

“ And love has its wonderful rights and rewards. Perhaps Elizabeth, who thought herself nothing at all to her mistress, would have marveled to know how much closer her mistress felt to this poor, honest, loving girl, whose truth she believed in, and on whose faithfulness she implicitly depended, than toward her own flesh and blood, who sat there moodily over the hearth ”

“ Enter Mistress Mulligrub, and Lionel with a goblet.
Mistress Mul. Nay, I pray you, stay and drink; and how does your mistress? I know her very well—I have been inward with her, and so has many more. She was ever a good, patient creature, i’faith! With all my heart, I’ll remember your master, an honest man. He knew me before I was married! An honest man he is, and a crafty. He comes forward in the world well, I warrant him; and his wife is a proper woman, that she is. Well, she has been as proper a woman as any in Cheap. ”

“ Now, I want to know if there are not hundreds of white women who would jump at such a situation as Phædra's?"
"Quite likely."
"Why, where could the fool be better off, or freer, if that's her whim? She is mistress of the house—absolutely to all intents and purposes, mistress of the house. All the money for domestic expenses passes through her hands; she carries the keys, governs the maids, and arranges everything to suit herself."
"And her master, too, let us hope, sir." ”

“ Her mistress told her to bring in some lunch and she soon returned with an elegant cold repast and some delicious wine.
After eating and drinking we again turned our attention to love. Rising from the chair I led her to the sofa, and drawing her on my knees, I stripped her dress and shift from her shoulder and loosening the strings of her petticoats toyed and played with her breasts, which were really beautiful, large and firm, and tipped with two most tempting strawberry nipples. ”

“ I have sought you, till I am weary, and call'd ye, till I am hoarse: good Lord, what a jaunt I have had this night, heigho!
COOMES. Is't you, mistress, that came over me? 'Sblood, 'twere a good deed to come over you for this night's work. I cannot afford all this pains for an angel: I tell ye true; a kiss were not cast away upon a good fellow, that hath deserved more that way than a kiss, if your kindness would afford it him: what, shall I have't, mistress?
HOD. Fie, fie, I must not kiss my man.
COOMES. Nay, nay, ne'er stand; shall I, shall I? ”

“ There is many a house mistress who looks as if she could use her fists when annoyed, who is absolutely afraid of her servants; and the maid is always the mistress when the one is fibre and the other pulp. ”

“ And in some perfumes is there more delight Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks. I love to hear her speak,—yet well I know That music hath a far more pleasing sound; I grant I never saw a goddess go,— My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground: And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare As any she belied with false compare. CXLVI Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth, Pressed by these rebel powers that thee array, Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth, Painting thy outward walls so costly gay? ”

“ While the housemaid was collecting the linen, the washerwoman lifted her eyes to the beautiful face of the mistress, and exclaimed: "Yes, they are a dreadful lot, the men; they are all alike, a malediction on them! The best of them is not to be trusted. They love all women but their own wives." "What dost thou mean?" ”

“ It is your mistress's door, then, that matrimony is now knocking at; but why should you be so pert upon it?
FLOUNCE.
⁠I am forgetting my flowers.
BUTLER.
⁠I'll arrange them for you, and carry them to the drawing-room presently. In the mean time, tell me why you are so pert upon this marriage; it won't mend the profits of your place. (Taking the nosegay from her, and arranging them in a pot on a side-table while she speaks.) ”