Now as widow Wadman did love my uncle Toby--and my uncle Toby did not love widow Wadman, there was nothing for widow Wadman to do, but to go on and love my uncle Toby--or let it alone.

Widow Wadman would do neither the one or the other.

--Gracious heaven!--but I forget I am a little of her temper myself; for whenever it so falls out, which it sometimes does about the equinoxes, that an earthly goddess is so much this, and that, and t'other, that I cannot eat my breakfast for her--and that she careth not three halfpence whether Ieat my breakfast or no--

--Curse on her! and so I send her to Tartary, and from Tartary to Terra del Fuogo, and so on to the devil: in short, there is not an infernal nitch where I do not take her divinityship and stick it.

But as the heart is tender, and the passions in these tides ebb and flow ten times in a minute, I instantly bring her back again; and as I do all things in extremes, I place her in the very center of the milky-way--Brightest of stars! thou wilt shed thy influence upon some one----The duce take her and her influence too--for at that word I lose all patience--much good may it do him!--By all that is hirsute and gashly! Icry, taking off my furr'd cap, and twisting it round my finger--I would not give sixpence for a dozen such!

--But 'tis an excellent cap too (putting it upon my head, and pressing it close to my ears)--and warm--and soft; especially if you stroke it the right way--but alas! that will never be my luck--(so here my philosophy is shipwreck'd again.)--No; I shall never have a finger in the pye (so here I break my metaphor)--Crust and Crumb Inside and out Top and bottom--I detest it, I hate it, I repudiate it--I'm sick at the sight of it--'Tis all pepper, garlick, staragen, salt, and devil's dung--by the great arch-cooks of cooks, who does nothing, I think, from morning to night, but sit down by the fire-side and invent inflammatory dishes for us, I would not touch it for the world----O Tristram! Tristram! cried Jenny.

O Jenny! Jenny! replied I, and so went on with the thirty-sixth chapter.