that as well as Billy or Bobby?-Or, Why should Sally have this or that any more than I?-But it was, As my mamma pleases; my mamma knows best; and a bow and a smile, and no surliness, or scowling brow to be seen, if they were denied anything; for well did they know, that their papa and mamma loved them so dearly that they would refuse them nothing that was for their good; and they were sure when they were refused, they asked for something that would have done them hurt, had it been granted. Never were such good boys and girls as these! And they grew up, and the masters became fine scholars, and fine gentlemen, and everybody honoured them; and the misses became fine ladies, and fine housewives; and this gentleman, when they grew to be women, sought to marry one of the misses, and that gentleman the other; and happy was he that could be admitted into their companies! So that they had nothing to do but to pick and choose out of the best gentlemen in the county: while the greatest ladies for birth, and the most remarkable for virtue (which, my dears, is better than either birth or fortune), thought themselves honoured by the addresses of the two brothers. And they married, and made good papas and mammas, and were so many blessings to the age in which they lived. There, my dear loves, were happy sons and daughters! For good masters seldom fail to make good gentlemen; and good misses good ladies; and God blesses them with as good children as they were to their parents! and so the blessing goes round-Who would not but be good?

Well, but, mamma, we will all be good: won't we, Master Davers? cries my Billy. Yes, brother Billy. Then they kiss one another; and if they have playthings, or anything they like, exchange with each other, to show the effect my lessons have upon them. But what will become of the naughty boys? Tell us, mamma, about the naughty boys!

Why, there was a poor, poor widow woman, who had three naughty sons, and one naughty daughter; and they

would do nothing that their mamma bid them do; were always quarrelling, scratching, and fighting; would not say their prayers; would not learn their book; so that the little boys used to laugh at them, and point at them, as they went along, for blockheads; and nobody loved them, or took notice of them, except to beat and thump them about, for their naughty ways, and their undutifulness to their poor mother, who worked hard to maintain them. As they grew up they grew worse and worse, and more and more stupid and ignorant, so that they impoverished their poor mother, and at last broke her heart; poor, poor widow woman!-And her neighbours joined together to bury the poor widow woman; for these sad ungracious children made away with what little she had left, while she was ill, before her heart was quite broken: and this helped to break it the sooner; for, had she lived, she saw she must have wanted bread, and had no comfort from such wicked children.

Poor, poor widow woman! said my Billy, with tears; and my little dove shed tears too, and Davers was moved, and miss wiped her fine eyes.

But what became of the naughty boys, and the naughty girl, mamma?—Became of them?-Why one son was forced to go to sea, and there he was drowned: another turned thief (for he would not work), and he came to an untimely end: the third was idle and ignorant; and nobody, who knew how he had used his poor mother, would employ him; and so he was forced to go into a far country and beg his bread. And the naughty girl, having never loved work, pined away in sloth and filthiness, and at last broke her arm, and died of a fever; lamenting, too late, that she had been so wicked a daughter to so good a mother. ---And so there was a sad end of all the four ungracious children, who never would mind what their poor mother said to them; and God punished their naughtiness, as you see! While the good children I mentioned before, were the glory of their family, and the delight of everybody that

knew them.

Who would not be good! was the inference. And the repetition from Billy, with his hands clapt together, Poor, poor widow woman! gave me much pleasure.

So my childish story ended with a kiss of each pretty dear, and their thanks for my story: and then came on miss's request for a woman's story, as she called it. I dismissed my babies to their play in the apartment allotted for that purpose; and taking miss's hand, she standing before me, all attention, began in a more womanly strain to her; for she is very fond of being thought a woman; and indeed is a prudent, sensible dear; comprehends anything instantly, and makes very pretty reflections upon what she hears or reads, as you will observe in what follows:

There is nothing, my dear Miss Goodwin, that young ladies should be so watchful over, as their reputation: 'Tis a tender flower, that the least frost will nip, the least cold wind will blast; and when once blasted, it will never flourish again; but wither to the very root. But this I have told you so often, that I am sure I need not repeat what I have said. So to my story.

There were four pretty ladies lived in one genteel neighbourhood, the daughters of four several families; but all companions, and visitors; and yet all of very different inclinations. Coquetilla we will call one, Prudiana another, Profusiana the third, and Prudentia the fourth; their several names denoting their respective qualities.

Coquetilla was the only daughter of a worthy baronet, by a lady very gay, but rather indiscreet than unvirtuous, who took not the requisite care of her daughter's education, but let her be over-run with the love of fashions, dress, and equipage; and when in London, balls, operas, plays, the park, the ring, the withdrawing-room, took up her whole attention. She admired nobody but herself, fluttered about, laughing at and despising a crowd of men-followers, whom she attracted by gay, thoughtless freedoms of behaviour, too nearly treading on the skirts of immodesty: yet made she not one worthy conquest; exciting, on the contrary, in all

sober minds, that contempt to herself, which she so profusely would be thought to pour down upon the rest of the world. After she had several years fluttered about the dangerous. light, like some silly fly, she at last singed the wings of her reputation; for being despised by every worthy heart, she became too easy and cheap a prey to a man the most unworthy of all her followers, who had resolution and confidence enough to break through those few cobweb reserves in which she had encircled her precarious virtue; and which were no longer of force to preserve her honour, when she met with a man more bold and more enterprising than herself, and who was as designing as she was thoughtless. And what then became of Coquetilla?-Why, she was forced to pass over sea to Ireland, where nobody knew her, and to bury herself in a dull obscurity; to go by another name; and at last, unable to support a life so unsuitable to the natural gaiety of her temper, she pined herself into a consumption, and died unpitied and unlamented, among strangers, having not one friend but whom she bought with her money.

Poor Lady Coquetilla! said Miss Goodwin; what a sad thing it is to have a wrong education! And how happy am I, who have so good a lady to supply the place of a dear distant mamma!-But be pleased, madam, to proceed to the next.

Prudiana, my dear, was the daughter of a gentleman who was a widower, and had, while the young lady was an infant, buried her mamma. He was a good sort of man; but had but one lesson to teach to Prudiana, and that was, To avoid all manner of conversation with the men; but never gave her the right turn of mind, nor instilled into it that sense of her religious duties, which would have been her best guard in all temptations. For, provided she kept out of the sight and conversation of the gentlemen, and avoided the company of those ladies who more freely conversed with the other sex, it was all her papa desired of her. This gave her a haughty, sullen, and reserved turn; made her stiff, formal, and affected. She had sense enough

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to discover early the faults of Coquetilla, and, in dislike of them, fell the more easily into that contrary extreme to which her recluse education, and her papa's cautions, naturally led her. So that pride, reserve, affectation, and censoriousness, made up the essentials of her character, and she became more unamiable even than Coquetilla; and as the other was too accessible, Prudiana was quite unapproachable by gentlemen, and unfit for any conversation but that of her servants, being also deserted by those of her own sex, by whom she might have improved, on account of her censorious disposition. And what was the consequence? Why this: Every worthy person of both sexes despising her, and she being used to see nobody but servants, at last throws herself upon one of that class. In an evil hour, she finds something that is taking to her low taste in the person of her papa's valet, a wretch so infinitely beneath her (but a gay coxcomb of a servant), that everybody attributed to her the scandal of making the first advances; for, otherwise, it was presumed, he durst not have looked up to his master's daughter. So here ended all her pride! All her reserves came to this! Her censoriousness of others, redoubled people's contempts upon herself, and made nobody pity her. She was finally turned out of doors, without a penny of her fortune the fellow was forced to set up a barber's shop in a country town; for all he knew, was to shave, and dress a peruke; and her papa would never look upon her more. So that Prudiana became the outcast of her family, and the scorn of all that knew her; and was forced to mingle in conversation and company with the wretches of her husband's degree!

Poor, miserable Prudiana! said miss.-What a sad, sad fall was hers!-And all owing to the want of a proper education too!-And to the loss of such a mamma, as I have an aunt; and so wise a papa, as I have an uncle-How could her papa, I wonder, restrain her person as he did, like a poor nun, and make her unacquainted with the generous restraints of the mind!

I am sure, my dear good aunt, it will be owing to you