I believe my prudent mother had observed the discontents of her eldest daughter as soon as myself; and in order to preserve the peace of the family, she studied to give Lucretia a consequence in it which she judged might satisfy, at least, her love of power. On her leaving school, my mother treated her as a young woman on whom she depended for assistance in the domestic concerns of the family. Oliver and myself were ordered to treat her with deference, and the servants were taught to respect Miss Flint's orders as her own. She continually praised her good qualities, and treated her with the utmost kindness and confidence. But Lucretia exercised her authority rather too much like a despot; my brother and myself were not always passive subjects; and the servants murmured under the controul of the young house-keeper. My father's tranquillity was thus invaded, and he determined on a measure, which, had it succeeded, would have restored order in his house. But Miss Flint was a plain girl; and my good father found that neither the frequent intimations which he gave of his liberal fortune, and designs in her favour, nor the commendations he bestowed on her _good sense_ and _notability_, produced any overtures of a matrimonial kind for his daughter. Lucretia, estimating her fortune and pretensions, was too proud "to undervalue herself," and with manners never pleasing, she was overlooked by men whose fortune needed not trafficking for a wife. This period of her youth, of course, passed unpleasantly; and conscious that she was neither a favourite with her own sex nor the other, she disdained both, and acquired a severity of speech, and a pointed incivility of behaviour to all around her. I had in the course of these events quitted my situation at the Charter-house. My partiality towards my sister Mary had not been unnoticed. Lucretia classed me with those whom she despised; and I met this indifference, it may be, with too much carelessness. In the mean time, my dear mother's influence was again exerted in my favour; but she gained her point with some difficulty. My father ungraciously observing, that he saw she was determined to have me learned and useless. He had no interest but such as his commercial concerns gave him; and he only wished, that I might not in the end blame her for an ambition so little profitable to my future fortune in life. My mother prevailed, and I was sent to Oxford. Satisfied with this extorted compliance, she saw me for two or three years happy in my pursuits, and the friend of my tutor; and wherefore, my dear Madam, should I suppress the glory of my life? She saw me her pride and hope! Her discernment in choosing the moment propitious to her applications in my behalf, and her gentle arguments in my favour had their effect; they could not make my father generous; but they prevented him from being mean; and my oeconomy rendered his bounty sufficient.