And know, dear sister[D], that all that I know you have done since we were wed up to this day, and all that you shall do hereafter with good intent has been and is good and well hath pleased, pleases and shall please me.

For your youth excuses you from being very wise, and will still excuse you in everything that you do with good intent to please me.

And know that it doth not displease, but rather pleases me that you should have roses to grow and violets to care for and that you should make chaplets and dance and sing, and I would well that you should so continue among our friends and those of our estate, and it is but right and seemly thus to pass the time of your feminine youth, provided that you desire and offer not to go to the feasts and dances of too great lords, for that is not seemly for you, nor suitable to your estate nor mine[1].' [Footnote D: He addresses her throughout as 'sister', a term of affectionate respect.] Meanwhile he has not forgotten her request that he would teach and correct her in private, and so he writes a little book (but it was a big book before he had finished) to show her how to comport herself; for he is sorry for this child, who has for long had neither father nor mother, and who is far from kinswomen who might counsel her, having 'me only' he says, 'for whom you have been taken from your kinsfolk and from the land of your birth.' He has often deliberated the matter and now here is 'an easy general introduction' to the whole art of being a wife, a housewife, and a perfect lady.

One characteristic reason, apart from his desire to help her and to be comfortable himself (for he was set in his ways), he gives for his trouble and recurs to from time to time, surely the strangest ever given by a husband for instructing his wife.

He is old, he says, and must die before her, and it is positively essential that she should do him credit with her second husband.