visiting a few of the most dishonorable, if they were of high rank or belonged to a certain set. In that case, she excused herself by saying, "That as fashionable people continued to countenance them, it was not for her to be scrupulous; one must sail with the stream; I can't set my face against the world." But if an unhappy girl had been drawn aside, or one who had not rank to bear her out had erred, that altered the case, and she then expressed the most virtuous indignation. When modesty happened to be in repute, not the necks of Queen Elizabeth and her courtly virgins were more entrenched in ruffs and shrouded in tuckers, than those of Mrs. Fentham and her daughters; but when display became the order of the day, the Grecian Venus was scarcely more unconscious of a vail.

With a very good understanding she never allowed herself one original thought, or one spontaneous action. Her ideas, her language, and her conduct were entirely regulated by the ideas, language, and conduct of those who stood well in the world. Vanity in her was a steady, inward, but powerfully pervading principle. It did not evaporate in levity or indiscretion, but was the hidden, though forcible spring of her whole course of action. She had all the gratification which vanity affords in secret, and all the credit which its prudent operation procures in public. She was apparently guilty of no excess of any kind. She had a sober scale of creditable vices, and never allowed herself to exceed a few stated degrees in any of them. She reprobated gaming, but could not exist without cards. Masquerades she censured as highly extravagant and dangerous, but when given by ladies of high quality, at their own houses, she thought them an elegant and proper amusement. Though she sometimes went to the play, she did not care for what passed on the stage, for she confessed the chief pleasure the theatre afforded was to reckon up when she came home, how many duchesses and countesses had bowed to her across the house.

A complete despot at home, her arbitrariness is so vailed by correctness of manner, and studied good breeding, that she obtains the credit of great mildness and moderation. She is said not to love her daughters, who come too near her in age, and go too much beyond her in beauty to be forgiven; yet like a consummate politician, she is ever laboring for their advancement. She has generally several schemes in hand, and always one scheme under another, the under-plot ready to be brought forward