Cavaliers or bitter Parliamentarians,
who were trying who should best persuade my Great-grandfather to cast in
his lot with one or the other of the contending parties. His son Richard
had already made his election, and, it is feared, by taking up supplies
on post obit from usurious money-scriveners in Bristol and London, had
raised a troop of horse for the service of the King. Moreover, Arabella
Greenville was of a very proud stomach and unbending humour. She might
be Led, but would not be Driven. She adored her father, but laughed at
the commands of the governante, and the counsels of the housekeeper, who
knew not how either to lead or to rule her. It was thus determined to
send her to Madam Ribotte's academy at Bristol,--for even so early as
King Charles's time had outlandish and new-fangled names been found for
Schools; and thither she was accordingly sent, with instructions that
she was to learn all the polite arts and accomplishments proper to her
station, that she was to be kept under a strict regimen, and corrected
of her faults; but that she was not to be thwarted in her reasonable
desires. She was to have her pony, with John coachman on the skewball
sent to fetch her every Saturday and holiday; was not to be overweighted
with tedious and dragging studies; and was by no means to be subject to
those shameful chastisements of the Ferula and the Rod, which, even
within my own time, I blush to say had not been banished from schools
for young gentlewomen. To sum up, Miss Arabella Greenville went to
school with a pocketful of gold pieces, and a play-chest full of
sweet-cakes and preserved fruits, and with a virtual charter for
learning as little as she chose, and doing pretty well as much as she
liked.

Of course my Grandmother ran a fair chance of being wholly spoiled, and
growing up to one of those termagant, mammythrept romps we used to laugh
at in Mr. Colley Cibber's plays. The schoolmistress fawned upon her,
for, although untitled, Esquire Greenville (from whom my descent is
plain), and he was so much respected in the West, that the innkeepers
were used to beseech him to set up achievements of his arms at the
hotels where he baited on his journeys, was one of the most considerable
of the County Gentry; the teachers were glad when she would treat them
from her abundant store of play-money; and she was a kind of divinity
among the schoolmaids her companions, to whom she gave so many cakes and
sweetmeats that the a