The poem primarily takes place in Celia's dressing-room. A fashionable young woman like Celia would have probably had a room in her house, like this one, set aside for getting dressed: after all, as the poem reminds us, it takes Celia five hours to get dressed every day. This room would have been a private and exlusively feminine space. The only people who really belonged there would have been Celia herself and her maid, called Betty in the poem. Even if Celia were married, her husband likely would not have had access into the space.

Readers are told a great deal about this space. There is no detail about how it is decorated, but readers are told what it contains: a mirror, a basin used for washing, various cloths and clothes, towels, and a chest that is used as a chamberpot (or that may contain a...