I accepted her: How could I do otherwise, (if I had had a mind to make objections, which, in my present situation, I had not,) her aunt present, and the young woman also present; and Mr. Lovelace officious in his introducing them, to oblige me?

"Soon after the women came about me, each contending to be more officious than the other, and my maids, themselves, were served with reverence.

The primal government of the chapel is in the hands of four deacons; but they are not very officious like some pillars of the church: one of them is mild and obliging, the second is wise-looking and crotchety, the third is disposed to pious rampagiousness in his lucid intervals, and the fourth is a kindly sort of being, with a moderate respect for converted dancers and hallaleujah men.

And all the remainder of mankind somehow take the greatest delight in being officious with respect to what is done by their rulers.

Such, however, is the state of the world, that the most obsequious of the slaves of pride, the most rapturous of the gazers upon wealth, the most officious of the whisperers of greatness, are collected from seminaries appropriated to the study of wisdom and of virtue, where it was intended that appetite should learn to be content with little, and that hope should aspire only to honours which no human power can give or take away[j].

This proceeding was viewed by England as officious from the fact that foreign men-of-war were not usually received at that port.

Very well answered; but you should have addedand must be officious to his patron.