The next person called upon to communicate the particulars of her eventful life, was a woman of above thirty years of age, in whose face appeared beauty in decay. Her features were extremely fine; but her eyes, which had been naturally languishing, were now become languid; and her complexion shewed the ill effects of time and irregularity, and of the pernicious arts made use of to restore a fictitious bloom, when the true one is passed.135 Her person was less impaired; she still preserved a genteel air, accompanied with some degree of dignity, which her manner and behaviour did not contradict. It is generally allowed, that vanity requires more sollicitation than diffidence: It is no wonder then if this society, who had much to humble them, and nothing whereof they could be vain, did not resist the general agreement and desire. They might indeed plead a title to honour, wherein few in more respected ranks of life can rival them, the merit of being sensible of their errors, and penitent for them: But such real desert can be no subject for vanity; on the contrary, it is both the consequence and the cause of the truest humility.

The person I have been describing, as the next who was to be her own biographer, was ready to obey the desire of her companions, as soon as they intimated it, and proceeded in the following terms.

My father was a country gentleman, who had impaired his fortune in his youth; but prudence came to his relief before his ruin was completed; and having married a woman with a tolerable fortune, and a great deal of economy, he settled intirely at his country seat.

My mother's extreme good housewifery might have restored his estate to its former bulk, had she not frustrated all her care by being extremely prolific; insomuch that breeding and saving went hand in hand, in such due proportion, that all we could expect from our parents was mere subsistence.