ervants, in the needle-works required for
the family: for her sister, as I have above hinted, is a MODERN. In
these she also included Dr. Lewen's conversation-visits; with whom
likewise she held a correspondence by letters. That reverend gentleman
delighted himself and her twice or thrice a week, if his health
permitted, with these visits: and she always preferred his company to any
other engagement.

Two hours she allotted to her two first meals.

But if conversation, or the desire of friends, or the falling in of
company or guests, required it to be otherwise, she never scrupled to
oblige; and would on such occasions borrow, as she called it, from other
distributions. And as she found it very hard not to exceed in this
appropriation, she put down

ONE hour more to dinner-time conversation,

to be added or subtracted, as occasions offered, or the desire of her
friends required: and yet found it difficult, as she often said, to keep
this account even; especially if Dr. Lewen obliged them with his company
at their table; which, however he seldom did; for, being a
valetudinarian, and in a regimen, he generally made his visits in the
afternoon.

ONE hour to visits to the neighbouring poor;

to a select number of whom, and to their children, she used to give brief
instructions, and good books; and as this happened not every day, and
seldom above twice a-week, she had two or three hours at a time to bestow
in this benevolent employment.

The remaining FOUR hours

were occasionally allotted to supper, to conversation, or to reading
after supper to the family. This allotment she called her fund, upon
which she used to draw, to satisfy her other debits; and in this she
included visits received and returned, shows, spectacles, &c. which, in a
country life, not occurring every day, she used to think a great
allowance, no less than two days in six, for amusements only; and she was
wont to say, that it was hard if she could not steal time out of this
fund, for an excursion of even two or three days in a month.

If it be said, that her relations, or the young neighbouring ladies, had
but little of her time, it will be considered, that besides these four
hours in the twenty-four, great part of the time she was employed in her
needle-works she used to converse as she worked; and it was a custom she
had introduced among her acquaintance, that the young ladies in their
visits used frequently, in a n