A _Woman_ Trusted with a _Secret_.
There was a Good Woman (in the Days when Good Women were in Fashion) that
valu’d her self wonderfully upon the Faculty of Retention, or (for the
sake of Good Manners) upon the admirable Gift she had in the keeping of
a Secret. The Toy took her Husband in the Head once, to make a Trial of
her Virtue that way; and so he told her one Morning upon Waking, in the
greatest Confidence imaginable, one of the strangest Things perhaps that
ever was heard of, which had that Night befall’n him: But my Dear, says
he, if you should Speak on’t again, I’m utterly Ruin’d; and Women are
generally so Leaky, that in the whole Course of my Life, I have hardly
met with any one of the Sex that could not hold her Breath longer then
she could keep a Secret. Ah, my Life (says she) but your Woman I assure
ye, is none of that Number? What? betray my Husband’s Secrets, I’d Die a
Thousand Deaths first. No my Heart, if ever I do, may—— Her Husband at
that word stopp’d her Mouth, for fear of some Bloody Imprecation, and
so told her. Come Wife, says he, _They that will Swear, will Lye_, and
so I’ll rather tell you upon Honour, Look ye here what has befall’n me:
I have laid an Egg to Night; and so he took the Egg from his Back-side,
and bad her feel on’t; but if this should ever come to Light now, People
would say that I was Hen-Trod, and the Disgrace of it would make me a
Scandal to Mankind. This Secret lay Burning in the Breast of the Poor
Woman, and kept her _Waking_, till she had Day-light enough to Rise
by; and then softly out of the Bed she steals, for fear of _Waking_
her Husband, and so away Post-hast to a Gossipping Neighbour of her
Acquaintance; Hurries her out of her Bed; Charms and Swears her to
Privacy; and then out comes the Secret, That her Husband had laid Two
Eggs that very Night. This Confident had another Confident; and there
’twas Three Eggs. The next made it Four; and so it went on (increasing
still,) from one Gossip to another, till by Six a Clock in the Afternoon
they had made it Forty Eggs.
The MORAL.
_Three may Keep Counsel when Two are away._