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 Dinner being over, the parson blesses them; when the midwife comes to the bridegroom, saying, Now, happy man, for a maidenhead; but there is a great discretion to be used in the gathering of it: it must be gently cropped for fear of spoiling; for, if you go too boisterously to work you'll pull it up by the roots; but if you do it just by degrees, it is young and tender, and you'll find it coming.

We will now suppose the afternoon worn out by dancing, to the great pleasure of the spectators, and the night begun, the bride is stolen away from the company, and put to bed; and after her, the bridegroom, now ready to consummate the highest joys of matrimony: but though the bridegroom now thinks each minute an age till he reaps the longed for fruit of all his amorous expectations, he is still obliged to wait with patience; for up comes the sack posset, which the women think will make the bridegroom kind and lusty too; nor can the bride and bridegroom get void of this unnecessary ceremony, until some good compassionate lady throw on purpose, the stocking into the posset, when she pretended to