I swear, says Bob, Harry belies me. I never told the Nurse that Harriot should stay in School all Day--It was Mama's order that so long as Mrs _Oakly_ the Nurse stays, Harriot is to go into School after Breakfast, & after Dinner, & say a lesson each time--I was passing through the Hall from Breakfast--The Nurse, a short Stump of a [wom]an, who blundered by mere accident, when she was young, out of the road in which Virgins commonly travel, & felt the difficulties of being a Mother, several years before She enjoyed the Pleasures of being a Wife--She call'd to me, & begg'd me to close the Quarrel; You shall have, said I, dear Madam, with the greatest Freedom my consent--Harriot shall be with you--At Breakfast--Where is Ben?--He breakfasts with the House-keeper Madam--At School--What a likeness there is in the manners of Boys; Bob, & Harry had skulk'd behind the writing-Table with their Slates on their Knees, & their Faces close together, just as I have done a thousand Times, in our little School-House in _Greenwich_--But once I was threshed confoundedly for a piece of such hidden play--_Tom Parks_ [blotted] asleep, poor Fellow he is now sleeping in the Dust;--Then he was fast asleep on a Bench, with his mouth open--I fill'd his mouth with Snuff!--He sprung up--Nature was in distress, & found all her Avenues too scanty at that time to clear out at once the tickling penetrating Powder--He snuffed--He coughed--He--He told the Master, & then I was tickled--Indeed he made my Feet beat time to his Lash---Says Bob to Harry, behind the Table, I wonder Mr _Fithian_ has not fallen in Love yet with some of our Nominy-Girls--Here he sits from Month to Month--(Not many Months longer said I to myself)--Mr _Marshal_[185] was always out; I suppose Mr _Fithian_ never thinks of Girls--Indeed says _Harry_, drawing his chair clos[e &] lowering his voice, I never in my Life saw a Man who thought so little of these things--Here Tom the Coachman came in with a wood Tarripin which he brought to be a resident in our Room to catch the Bugs & Cockroaches-- [185] James Marshall, Fithian's predecessor as tutor of the Carter children, had formerly been an usher at the College of William and Mary. Marshall had inherited a plantation in Orange County. The _Virginia Gazette_ of April 18, 1773 had announced the death of Marshall, at "Nomini Hall" and had corrected the error in its next issue.