I almost wish the girls were novel-readers and romantic. I declare
false refinement is better than none at all; but these girls
understand several languages, and have read _cartloads_ of history,
for their mother was a prudent woman. Lady K.'s passion for animals
fills up the hours which are not spent in dressing. All her
children have been ill,--very disagreeable fevers. Her ladyship
visited them in a formal way, though their situation called forth
my tenderness, and I endeavored to amuse them, while she lavished
awkward fondness on her dogs. I think now I hear her infantine
lisp. She rouges, and, in short, is a fine lady, without fancy or
sensibility. I am almost tormented to death by dogs. But you will
perceive I am not under the influence of my darling passion--pity;
it is not always so. I make allowance and adapt myself, talk of
getting husbands for the _ladies_--and the _dogs_, and am
wonderfully entertaining; and then I retire to my room, form
figures in the fire, listen to the wind, or view the Gotties, a
fine range of mountains near us, and so does time waste away in
apathy or misery.... I am drinking asses' milk, but do not find it
of any service. I am very ill, and so low-spirited my tears flow in
torrents almost insensibly. I struggle with myself, but I hope my
Heavenly Father will not be extreme to mark my weakness, and that
He will have compassion upon a poor bruised reed, and pity a
miserable wretch, whose sorrows He only knows.... I almost wish my
warfare was over.

The religious tone of this letter calls for special notice, since it was
written at the very time she was supposed to be imparting irreligious
principles to her pupils.

Mary had none of the false sentiment of a Sterne, and could not waste
sympathy over brutes, when she felt that there were human beings who
needed it. Her ladyship's dogs worried her because of the contrast
between the attention they received and the indifference which fell to
the lot of the children. Besides, the then distressing condition of the
laboring population in Ireland made the luxuries and silly affectations
of the rich doubly noticeable. Mary saw for herself the poverty of the
peasantry. Margaret was allowed to visit the poor, and she accompanied
her on her charitable rounds. The almost bestial squalor in which these
people lived was another cru