ain one might naturally receive from seeing the
human form so disgraced, we were filled with admiration of the human
mind, when so nobly exalted by virtue, as it is in the patronesses of
these poor creatures, who wore an air of cheerfulness, which shewed they
thought the churlishness wherewith they had been treated by nature
sufficiently compensated. The tender inquiries the ladies made after
their healths, and the kind notice they took of each of them, could not
be exceeded by any thing but the affection, I might almost say
adoration, with which these people beheld their benefactresses.

This scene had made too deep an impression on our minds not to be the
subject of our discourse all the way home, and in the course of
conversation, I learnt that when these people were first rescued out of
their misery, their healths were much impaired, and their tempers more
so; to restore the first, all medicinal care was taken, and air and
exercise assisted greatly in their recovery; but to cure the malady of
the mind, and conquer that internal source of unhappiness, was a work of
longer time. Even these poor wretches had their vanity, and would
contend for superior merit, of which the argument was the money their
keepers had gained in exhibiting them. To put an end to this contention,
the ladies made them understand that what they thought a subject for
boasting, was only a proof of their being so much farther from the usual
standard of the human form, and therefore a more extraordinary
spectacle. But it was long before one of them could be persuaded to lay
aside her pretensions to superiority, which she claimed on account of an
extraordinary honour she had received from a great princess, who had
made her a present of a sedan chair.

At length, however, much reasoning and persuasion, a conviction of
principles, of which they had before no knowledge, the happiness of
their situation, and the improvement of their healths, concurred to
sweeten their tempers and they now live in great harmony. They are
entirely mistresses of their house, have two maids to wait on them, over
whom they have sole command, and a person to do such little things in
their garden as they cannot themselves perform; but the cultivation of
it is one of their great pleasures; and by their extraordinary care,
they have the satisfaction of presenting the finest flowers of the
spring to their benefactresses, before they are blown in any other
place.

When they firs