Aunt was a great manager of her time, and always contrived to create leisure hours for reading; for that kind of conversation, which is properly styled gossiping, she had the utmost contempt. Light, superficial reading, such as merely fills a blank in time, and glides over the mind without leaving an impression, was little known there; for few books crossed the Atlantic but such as were worth carrying so far for their intrinsic value. She was too much accustomed to have her mind occupied with objects of real weight and importance, to give it up to frivolous pursuits of any kind. She began the morning with reading the scriptures. They always breakfasted early, and dined two hours later than the primitive inhabitants, who always took that meal at twelve. This departure from the ancient customs was necessary in this family, to accommodate the great numbers of British as well as strangers from New-York, who were daily entertained at her liberal table. This arrangement gave her the advantage of a longer forenoon to dispose of. After breakfast she gave orders for the family details of the day, which, without a scrupulous attention to those minutiæ which fell more properly under the notice of her young friends, she always regulated in the most judicious manner, so as to prevent all appearance of hurry and confusion. There was such a rivalry among domestics, whose sole ambition was her favour, and who had been so trained up from infancy, each to their several duties, that excellence in each department was the result both of habit and emulation; while her young protégés were early taught the value and importance of good housewifery, and were sedulous in their attention to little matters of decoration and elegance, which her mind was too much engrossed to attend to; so that her household affairs, ever well regulated, went on in a mechanical kind of progress, that seemed to engage little of her attention, though her vigilant and overruling mind set every spring of action in motion. Having thus easily and speedily arranged the details of the day, she retired to read in her closet, where she generally remained till about eleven, when, being unequal to distant walks, the colonel and she, and some of her elder guests, passed some of the hotter hours among those embowering shades of her garden, in which she took great pleasure. Here was their lyceum; here questions in religion and morality, too weighty for table-talk, were leisurely and coolly discussed, and plans of policy and various utility arranged. From this retreat they adjourned to the portico; and while the colonel either retired to write, or went to give directions to his servants, she sat in this little tribunal, giving audience to new settlers, followers of the army left in hapless dependence, and others who wanted assistance or advice, or hoped she would intercede with the colonel for something more peculiarly in his way, he having great influence with the colonial government.