the corner of the room, with my wounded leg upon a chair, and the young woman beside me, holding the corner of her handkerchief dipp’d in vinegar to my nose with one hand, and rubbing my temples with the other.
I took her at first for the daughter of the peasant (for it was no inn)—so had offer’d her a little purse with eighteen florins, which my poor brother Tom (here Trim wip’d his eyes) had sent me as a token, by a recruit, just before he set out for Lisbon .⸺
⸺I never told your honour that piteous story yet⸺here Trim wiped his eyes a third time.
The young woman call’d the old man and his wife into the room, to show them the money, in order to gain me credit for a bed and what little necessaries I should want, till I should be in a condition to be got to the hospital⸺Come then! said she, tying up the little purse—I’ll be your banker—but as that office alone will not keep me employ’d, I’ll be your nurse too.
I thought by her manner of speaking this, as well as by her dress, which I then began to consider more attentively⸺that the young woman could not be the daughter of the peasant.
She was in black down to her toes, with her hair conceal’d under a cambric border, laid close to her forehead: she was one of those kind of nuns, an’ please your honour, of which, your honour knows, there are a good many in Flanders , which they let go loose⸺By thy description, Trim , said my uncle Toby , I dare say she was a young Beguine , of which there are none to be found anywhere but in the Spanish Netherlands —except at Amsterdam ⸺they differ from nuns in this, that they can quit their cloister if they choose to marry; they visit and take care of the sick by profession⸺I had rather, for my own part, they did it out of good-nature.