Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 17.djvu/180

174 and was of such an irregular temper, and so entirely given up to her passion, that you might argue as well with the north wind, as with her ladyship: so expensive, that the income of three dukedoms was not enough to supply her extravagance. Hocus loved her best, believing her to be his own, got upon the body of Mrs. Bull.

The second daughter, born a year after her sister, was a peevish, froward, ill-conditioned creature as ever was, ugly as the devil, lean, haggard, pale, with saucer eyes, a sharp nose, and hunchbacked: but active, sprightly, and diligent about her affairs. Her ill complexion was occasioned by her bad diet, which was coffee, morning, noon, and night: she never rested quietly abed; but used to disturb the whole family with shrieking out in her dreams, and plague them next day with interpreting them, for she took them all for gospel: she would cry out murder, and disturb the whole neighbourhood; and when John came running down stairs, to inquire what the matter was; nothing, forsooth, only her maid had stuck a pin wrong in her gown: she turned away one servant, for putting too much oil in her sallad, and another for putting too little salt in her watergruel; but such, as by flattery had procured her esteem, she would indulge in the greatest crime. Her father had two coachmen; when one was on the coachbox, if the coach swung but the least to one side, she used to shriek so loud, that all the street concluded she was overturned; but though the other was eternally drunk, and had overturned the whole family, she was very angry with her father for turning him away. Then