B

etsy did force me to take matters into my own hands - or perhaps hand would be the better expression - and she was much improved for it. I'm sure you will sympathize with me, Reverend Halifax, I simply could not endure it another day. By the third day of her playshow, pretending not to know who I was, I had had enough. After all my friendliness towards her, and my assistance in the matter of building the green-house, she would dare treat me so disrespectfully. And so when I accosted her in the green-house and once again she pretended not to know me, I felt that a stern, judicious reminder of the respect that a woman owes a man's authority was exactly the medicine needed.

Admittedly when I delivered the cure she was unwilling and made a fuss about it, and burst into tears during the treatment, and ran wailing from the green-house into her home directly after I dumped her unceremoniously out of my lap. But the proof of the rightness of my approach was manifest the next morning, when I visited her again in the green-house. She said my name immediately, although with a bit of a start - perhaps she thought I planned to administer more of the cure - and there was no more insolent pretense. And when I saw her later that day, she was sweeter than she had ever been before, extremely docile and agreeable.

And no, I did not perform this physic out of any carnal desire, but simply because I realized that Betsy had been running wild for long enough. Her husband had been gone for some time and she was no longer subject to the constraints and disciplines that all wives are - she needed some taming and I was obliged to perform that task, as a friend. Clearly she was on the verge of hysteria and having the strong presence of a man to administer the needed discipline had a calming effect on her. I'm sure you must have come across such unmarried women in your pastoral career and if you did not administer the treatment that I did, you have surely been sorely tempted. I am certainly in a position now to highly recommend the treatment - it has worked wonders.

(To be continued...)