My dear Sir: Having been granted leave of absence from the kitchen, and a thought too willingly for my Self-esteem, for it puts me in mind that Mrs Dewdney does not greatly love to have me there at her heels, I now have the pleasure to send you my loving Duty, together with such odds and ends of gossip as I hope may amuse you. There have been doings a-plenty in the Fee, much wantonness having come to light, and in the sequel a pretty uproar, so that indeed there are like to be heads broken unless you soon return to restore order and peace among us. But this is no way to tell a tale, so I must acquaint you first with the cause of it all, which is that a fellow that squats upon the Common, Noke his name, hath got Erasmus Bailey the innkeeper’s daughter with child. It seems the young woman contriv’d to carry her secret a full five months, and would so have persisted till the very day of her delivery, I dare wager, had not a sudden jealousy prickt her on to this untimely disclosure: I say untimely, not as condoning her sin, but rather to present the opinion which she in her stubborn fear must have held of the matter, forgetting, poor child, that from our Saviour and Judge there can be no concealment, and that to escape the world’s censure is scarce worth the contriving. She is, as to appearance, a quiet and comely wench, and you would have said a modest one, but I fear it must make her guilt the deeper that she hath gotten some semblance of education and refinement from her father’s teaching, who, as you may know, is not unletter’d, though his manners accord, as they should, with his humble station. Well, to make no more words of it, it seems that this Letitia Bailey, or Tisha as they call her hereabouts, surpris’d her paramour in the arms of Mykelborne the wheelwright’s daughter, and liked the sight so ill that she must needs blurt out the whole story and publish her own dishonour to the world, or, what is the same thing, to her mother: the which worthy woman rounds upon Bailey, declaring “that if he is half a man, which she begs leave to doubt, he will take a horsewhip to the villain and see that he makes an honest woman of their daughter.” I was not, you must understand, privy to this dialogue, but I can pretty well vouch for madam’s style of conversation, having had, in these last days, a sufficient taste of it.