While Sir William thus united in his mode of life the calm urbanity of a liberal and extensive trader, with the splendid hospitality, the numerous attendance, and the plain though dignified manners of an ancient baron, the female part of his family were educated in a manner so entirely dissimilar from that of all other young people of their sex and station, that as a matter of curiosity, it is worthy a recital. These two young ladies inherited, in a great measure, the personal advantages and strength of understanding for which their father was so distinguished. Their mother dying when they were young, bequeathed the care of them to a friend. This friend was the widow of an officer who had fallen in battle. I am not sure whether she was devout, and shunned the world for fear of its pollutions, or romantic, and despised its selfish bustling spirit; but so it was, that she seemed utterly to forget it, and devoted herself to her fair pupils. To these she taught needle-work of the most elegant and ingenious kinds, reading and writing. Thus quietly passed their childhood; their monitress not taking the smallest concern in family management, nor, indeed, the least interest in any worldly thing but themselves; far less did she inquire about the fashions or diversions which prevailed in a world she had renounced, and from which she seemed to wish her pupils to remain for ever estranged. Never was any thing so uniform as their dress, their occupations, and the general tenor of their lives. In the morning they rose early, read their prayer-book, I believe, but certainly their bible, fed their birds, tended their flowers, and breakfasted; then were employed for some hours with unwearied perseverance, at fine needle-work, for the ornamental parts of dress, which were the fashion of the day, without knowing to what use they were to be put, as they never wore them; and had not at the age of sixteen ever seen a lady, excepting each other and their governess; they then read, as long as they chose, the voluminous romances of the last century, of which their friend had an ample collection, or Rollin’s Ancient History, the only books they had ever seen; after dinner, they regularly in summer took a long walk; or an excursion in the sleigh, in winter, with their friend, and then returned and resumed their wonted occupations, with the sole variation of a stroll in the garden in summer, and a game at chess or shuttle-cock in winter. Their dress was full as simple and uniform as every thing else; they wore wrappers of the finest chintz, and green silk petticoats—and this the whole year round without variation. Their hair, which was long and beautiful, was tied behind with a simple ribbon; a large calash shaded each from the sun, and in winter they had long scarlet mantles that covered them from head to foot. Their father did not live with them, but visited them every day in their apartment. This innocent and uniform life they led, till the death of their