Page:A Treatise concerning the Use and Abuse of the Marriage Bed.djvu/373

 how unkindly they treated her, how perfectly at liberty she was to give her Estate to whom she pleased, and that she was not so old, and come to doat so much, as to give what she had to those that did not think it worth their while to deserve it, or that could not afford to be Civil to her; that she found they only gap'd for her Death, and that she should take care, if they did not alter their Conduct, they should have little enough to expect from her.

alarm'd them a little; and if they had been any thing but thoughtless Girls, they would have chang'd their Methods a little. But it wore off in a little time, and they went on just as they did before.

length the old Lady, thoroughly provoked by their ill Usage, and her Resentment being quickened by some particular extraordinary Carriage, takes a sudden Resolution to change her way of living, leave off House-keeping, and retire into the Country, to end her Days, as she called it, in Peace, and do good with what she had.

Nieces soon found they had lost themselves so much with her, that they had not Interest enough to alter her Resolutions, though they hung about her then with Tears and Entreaties, so they employ'd other Relations to intercede with her. But she soon stopt their Mouths, with letting them know how her Nieces had treated her, and what fair Warning she had given them, adding some particular Unkindnesses which she had met with from them, and some Speeches which they had been weak enough to let her overhear; upon which, in short, she was unalterably resolved either to give away her Estate to charitable Uses, or