But let me not, my friend, your envy raise,
No! on my life, your patience has my praise.”
His Friend, though silent, felt the scorn implied -
“What need of patience?” to himself he cried:
“Better a woman o’er her house to rule,
Than a poor child just hurried from her school;
Who has no care, yet never lives at ease;
Unfit to rule, and indisposed to please.
What if he govern, there his boast should end;
No husband’s power can make a slave his friend.”