These desertions had, however, now so far thinn'd Mrs. Cole's cluck, that she was left with only me, like a hen with one chicken; but tho' she was earnestly entreated and encourag'd to recruit her corps, her growing infirmities, and above all the tortures of a stubborn hip-gout, which she found would yield to no remedy, determin'd her to break up her business, and retire with a decent pittance into the country, where I promised myself, nothing so sure, as my going down to live with her, as soon as I had seen a little more of life, and improv'd my small matters into a competency that would create me an independence on the world; for I was now, thanks to Mrs. Cole, wise enough to keep that essential in view.
Thus I was then to lose my faithful preceptress, as did the Philosophers of the Town the White Crow of her profession; for, besides that, she never ransomed her customers, whose taste too she ever studiously consulted; besides that she never racked her pupils with unconscionable ex-
