her tongue was guilty of, was more owing to her vanity and
that talkative humour in which she had always been encouraged from her
infancy, than to any real malice in her heart. She had been long
accustomed to speak without thinking, and naturally imagined that her
impertinent loquacity would be as much admired and applauded by other
people as by her thoughtless parents. I have the satisfaction, however,
to observe that you are perfectly sensible of her mistake, though she
had not the good fortune to be so herself. If she had lived much
longer, it is very probable that the many slights and affronts she must
necessarily have met with, would have opened her eyes: For those who by
their impertinent censures set the whole world at defiance, may
reasonably expect to find an enemy in every house they enter. But her
meddlesome, inquisitive disposition proved to be the accidental means
of shortening her days, before she had experience enough to correct it:
for, one evening, Mr. _Kindly_, a wealthy merchant, indulged all the
young masters and misses in the neighbourhood with a splendid ball at
his own house: Miss _Chatterfast_, though she had at that time a severe
cold upon her, was so desirous of embracing such a favourable
opportunity of making her remarks upon the behaviour and different
dresses of the company, and thereby furnishing herself with an ample
stock for conversation, that she could not be prevailed upon by her too
indulgent parents to spend the evening at home. The consequence was
such as might naturally have been expected. By first over heating
herself at the ball, and afterwards exposing herself to the night air
in her return home, her cold, (which was bad enough before) suddenly
increased into a violent fever which hurried her to the grave in the
short space of five or six days. Though her untimely death excited the
transient pity of most of her acquaintance, very few of them, I
believe, were really sorry to part with her. But notwithstanding that
violent propensity to exercise her tongue, which she too frequently
indulged to the vexation of her neighbours, she had a large fund of
good nature at the bottom; so that I am in hopes that she will soon be
restored to the rank of human beings, and have an opportunity of
employing her speaking faculties with greater discretion and in a more
agreeable manner than she did before. Her former loquacity (as I have
already observed) was almost entirely owing to that vanity an