MRS. _Bridget_ had pawn’d all the little stock of honour a poor
chamber-maid was worth in the world, that she would get to the bottom
of the affair in ten days; and it was built upon one of the most
concessible _postulata_ in nature: namely, that whilst my uncle _Toby_
was making love to her mistress, the corporal could find nothing better
to do, than make love to her——“_And I’ll let him as much as he will_,
said _Bridget_, to get it out of him.”
Friendship has two garments; an outer and an under one. _Bridget_ was
serving her mistress’s interests in the one—and doing the thing which
most pleased herself in the other: so had as many stakes depending upon
my uncle _Toby_’s wound, as the Devil himself——Mrs. _Wadman_ had but
one—and as it possibly might be her last (without discouraging Mrs.
_Bridget_, or discrediting her talents) was determined to play her
cards herself.
She wanted not encouragement: a child might have look’d into his
hand——there was such a plainness and simplicity in his playing out what
trumps he had——with such an unmistrusting ignorance of the
_ten-ace_——and so naked and defenceless did he sit upon the same sopha
with widow _Wadman_, that a generous heart would have wept to have won
the game of him.
Let us drop the metaphor.