30. Madam, says _Rhadamanthus_, be pleased to file off to the left, and make room for the venerable matron that stands behind you. Old gentlewoman, says he, I think you are fourscore? You have heard the question, what have you been doing so long in the world? Ah! sir, says she, I have been doing what I should not have done, but I had made a firm resolution to have changed my life, if I had not been snatched off by an untimely end.
31. Madam, says he, you will please to follow your leader, and spying another of the same age, interrogated her in the same form. To which the matron replied, I have been the wife of a husband who was as dear to me in his old age as in his youth. I have been a mother, and very happy in my children, whom I endeavoured to bring up in every thing that is good.
32. My eldest son is blest by the poor, and beloved by every one that knows him. I lived within my own family, and left it much more wealthy than I found it. _Rhadamanthus_, who knew the value of the old lady smiled upon her in such a manner, that the keeper of _Elysium_, who knew his office, reached out his hand to her. He no sooner touched her but her wrinkles vanished, her eyes sparkled, her cheeks glowed with blushes, and she appeared in full bloom and beauty.
33. A young woman observing that this officer, who conducted the happy to _Elysium_, was so great a _beautifier_, longed to be in his hands, so that, pressing through the croud, she was the next that appeared at the bar, and being asked what she had been doing the five and twenty years that she had passed in the world, I have endeavoured, says she, ever since I came to the years of discretion, to make myself lovely, and gain admirers.
34. In order to do it I past my time in bottling up Maydew, inventing white-washes, mixing colours, cutting out patches, consulting my glass, suiting my complexion, tearing off my tucker, sinking my stays--_Rhadamanthus_, without hearing her out, gave the sign to take her off. Upon the approach of the keeper of _Erebus_ her colour faded, her face was puckered up with wrinkles, and her whole person lost in deformity.
35. I was then surprised with a distant sound of a whole troop of females that came forward laughing, singing, and dancing. I was very desirous to know the reception they would meet with, and withal was very apprehensive that _Rhadamanthus_ would spoil their mirth; but at their nearer approach the noise grew so very great that it awakened me.