number) ſhould never ſee a novel. As ſhe was a woman of fortune and faſhion, they had various maſters to attend them, and a ſort of menial governeſs to watch their footſteps. From their maſters they learned how tables, chairs, &c. were called in French and Italian; but as the few books thrown in their way were far above their capacities, or devotional, they neither acquired ideas nor ſentiments, and paſſed their time when not compelled to repeat words, in dreſſing, quarrelling with each other, or converſing with their maids by ſtealth, till they were brought into company as marriageable.
Their mother, a widow, was buſy in the mean time in keeping up her connections, as ſhe termed a numerous acquaintance, leſt her girls ſhould want a proper introduction into the great world. And theſe young ladies, with minds vulgar in every ſenſe of the word, and ſpoiled tempers, entered life puffed up with notions of their own conſequence, and looking down with contempt on thoſe who could not vie with them in dreſs and parade.
With reſpect to love, nature, or their nurſes, had taken care to teach them the phyſical meaning of the word; and, as they had few topics of converſation, and fewer refinements of ſentiment, they expreſſed their groſs wiſhes not in very delicate phraſes, when they ſpoke freely, talking of matrimony.
Could theſe girls have been injured by the peruſal of novels? I almoſt forgot a ſhade in the character of one of them; ſhe affected a ſimplicity bordering on folly, and with a ſimper would
