he ladies pay to their several
institutions, and to the poor and sick in their village. Their
employments are great, but their days are proportionable; for they are
always up by five o'clock, and by their example the people in the
village rise equally early; at that hour one sees them all engaged in
their several businesses with an assiduity which in other places is not
awakened till much later.

I called on Mrs Maynard to continue her task, which without any previous
ceremony she did as follows.

THE HISTORY OF Miss SELVYN

Mr Selvyn, the younger brother of an ancient family, whose fortune was
inferior to the rank it held in the country where it had long been
fixed, was placed in trade in London; but his success not answering his
hopes, he gave it up before it was too late to secure himself a small
subsistence and retired into the country when Miss Selvyn was about five
years old. His wife had been dead two years; thus his little girl's
education devolved entirely on himself.

He bred her up genteelly, though his fortune was small, and as he was
well qualified for the part became himself her tutor and executed that
office so well that at twelve years old she excelled all the young
ladies in the neighbourhood of her own age in French and writing, either
for hand or style; and in the great propriety and grace with which she
read English. She had no small knowledge of accounts and had made some
progress in the study of history. Her person was elegant and pleasing
and her temper and manner perfectly engaging; but yet these charms could
not induce the neighbouring families to forgive her for excelling other
girls in her accomplishments.

They censured Mr Selvyn for giving his daughter an education to which
her fortune was so little suited, and thought he would have done better
to have bred her up to housewifery and qualified her for the wife of an
honest tradesman; for part of what he had was known to be a life income;
a small sinecure having been procured him by his friends in town before
he retired into the country.

The censures of those who love to shew their own wisdom by blaming
others had little effect on Mr Selvyn; he continued his diligence in
cultivating his little girl's mind; and even taught himself many things
that he might be able to instruct her. If he did not breed her up in a
manner to gain a subsistence by the most usual means, he however
qualified her to subsist on little; he taught her tru