Well now, what is all this to the purpose, as things have turned about?

Why, no more nor less, than that I am like the grasshopper in the fable,
which I have read of in my lady's book, as follows:--[See the Aesop's
Fables which have lately been selected and reformed from those of Sir R.
L'Estrange, and the most eminent mythologists.]

'As the ants were airing their provisions one winter, a hungry
grasshopper (as suppose it was poor I) begged a charity of them. They
told him, That he should have wrought in summer, if he would not have
wanted in winter. Well, says the grasshopper, but I was not idle
neither; for I sung out the whole season. Nay, then, said they, you'll
e'en do well to make a merry year of it, and dance in winter to the time
you sung in summer.'

So I shall make a fine figure with my singing and my dancing, when I come
home to you! Nay, I shall be unfit even for a May-day holiday-time; for
these minuets, rigadoons, and French dances, that I have been practising,
will make me but ill company for my milk-maid companions that are to be.
To be sure I had better, as things stand, have learned to wash and scour,
and brew and bake, and such like. Put I hope, if I can't get work, and
can meet with a place, to learn these soon, if any body will have the
goodness to bear with me till I am able: For, notwithstanding what my
master says, I hope I have an humble and teachable mind; and, next to
God's grace, that's all my comfort: for I shall think nothing too mean
that is honest. It may be a little hard at first; but woe to my proud
heart, if I find it so on trial; for I will make it bend to its
condition, or break it.

I have read of a good bishop that was to be burnt for his religion; and