d their
thanks for my story: and then came on Miss's request for a woman's
story, as she called it. I dismissed my babies to their play; and
taking Miss's hand, she standing before me, all attention, began in a
more womanly strain to _her_; for she is very fond of being thought
a woman; and indeed is a prudent sensible dear, comprehends any thing
instantly, and makes very pretty reflections upon what she hears or
reads as you will observe in what follows:

"There is nothing, my dear Miss Goodwin, that young ladies should be
so watchful over, as their reputation: 'tis a tender flower that the
least frost will nip, the least cold wind will blast; and when once
blasted, it will never flourish again, but wither to the very root.
But this I have told you so often, I need not repeat what I have said.
So to my story.

"There were four pretty ladies lived in one genteel neighbourhood,
daughters of four several families; but all companions and visitors;
and yet all of very different inclinations. Coquetilla we will call
one, Prudiana another, Profusiana the third, and Prudentia the fourth;
their several names denoting their respective qualities.

"Coquetilla was the only daughter of a worthy baronet, by a lady very
gay, but rather indiscreet than unvirtuous, who took not the requisite
care of her daughter's education, but let her be over-run with the
love of fashion, dress, and equipage; and when in London, balls,
operas, plays, the Park, the Ring, the withdrawing-room, took up her
whole attention. She admired nobody but herself, fluttered about,
laughing at, and despising a crowd of men-followers, whom she
attracted by gay, thoughtless freedoms of behaviour, too nearly
treading on the skirts of immodesty: yet made she not one worthy
conquest, exciting, on the contrary, in all sober minds, that contempt
of herself, which she so profusely would be thought to pour down upon
the rest of the world. After she had several years fluttered about the
dangerous light, like some silly fly, she at last singed the wings of
her reputation; for, being despised by every worthy heart, she became
too easy and cheap a prey to a man the most unworthy of all her
followers, who had resolution and confidence enough to break through
those few cobweb reserves, in which she had encircled her precarious
virtue; and which were no longer of force to preserve her honour, when
she met with a man more bold and more enterprising than herself, and
who was as