Bitterly she cursed her husband who had made her a lady of adventure instead of what nature intended, "a harmless household dove". More and more wildly she ransacked her brains for anecdotes, memories, scandals, views about the bottomless nature of the sea, the inflammable character of the earth--anything that would fill a page and earn her a guinea. She remembered that she had eaten plovers' eggs with Swift. "Here, Hussey," said he, "is a Plover's egg. King William used to give crowns apiece for them.