As Susannah was informed by an express from Mrs. Bridget, of my uncle Toby's falling in love with her mistress fifteen days before it happened,--the contents of which express, Susannah communicated to my mother the next day,--it has just given me an opportunity of entering upon my uncle Toby's amours a fortnight before their existence.

I have an article of news to tell you, Mr. Shandy, quoth my mother, which will surprise you greatly.--Now my father was then holding one of his second beds of justice, and was musing within himself about the hardships of matrimony, as my mother broke silence.--'--My brother Toby,' quoth she, 'is going to be married to Mrs. Wadman.'

--Then he will never, quoth my father, be able to lie diagonally in his bed again as long as he lives.

It was a consuming vexation to my father, that my mother never asked the meaning of a thing she did not understand.

--That she is not a woman of science, my father would say--is her misfortune--but she might ask a question.--My mother never did.--In short, she went out of the world at last without knowing whether it turned round, or stood still.--My father had officiously told her above a thousand times which way it was,--but she always forgot.

For these reasons, a discourse seldom went on much further betwixt them, than a proposition,--a reply, and a rejoinder; at the end of which, it generally took breath for a few minutes (as in the affair of the breeches), and then went on again.

If he marries, 'twill be the worse for us,--quoth my mother.

Not a cherry-stone, said my father,--he may as well batter away his means upon that, as any thing else, --To be sure, said my mother: so here ended the proposition--the reply,--and the rejoinder, I told you of.

It will be some amusement to him, too,--said my father.

A very great one, answered my mother, if he should have children.----Lord have mercy upon me,--said my father to himself--. . ..