‘My grandfather so plainly saw the temper and disposition of his son towards women, that he did not leave him at liberty to dispose of his magic art to any but his posterity, that it might not be in the power of a wife to tease him out of it. But his caution was to very little purpose; for although my mother could not from herself exert any magic power, yet such was her unbounded influence over her husband, that she was sure of success in every attempt to persuade him to gratify her desires. For if every argument she could invent happened to fail, yet the shedding but one tear was a certain method to prevail with him to give up his reason, whatever might be the consequence. ‘When my father and mother had been married about a year, she was brought to bed of a daughter, to whom she gave the name of Brunetta. Her first request to my father was, that he would endow this infant with as much beauty as she herself was possessed of, and bestow on her as much of his art as should enable her to succeed in all her designs. My father foresaw the dreadful tendency of granting this request, but said he would give it with this restriction, that she should succeed in all her designs that were not wicked; for, said he, the success of wicked designs always turns out as a punishment to the person so succeeding. In this resolution he held for three days, till my mother (being weak in body after her lying-in) worked herself with her violent passions to such a degree, that the physicians told my father, they despaired of her life, unless some method could be found to make her mind more calm and easy. His fondness for his wife would not suffer him to bear the thoughts of losing her, and the horror with which that apprehension had but for a moment possessed his mind, prevailed with him to bestow on the little Brunetta (though foreseeing it would make her miserable) the fatal gift in its full extent. But one restriction it was out of his power to take off, namely, that all wicked designs ever could and should be rendered ineffectual by the virtue and perseverance of those against whom they were intended, if they in a proper manner exerted that virtue. ‘I was born in two years after Brunetta, and was called Sybella: but my mother was so taken up with her darling Brunetta, that she gave herself nut the least concern about me; and I was left wholly to the care of my father. In order to make the gift she had extorted from her fond husband as fatal as possible to her favourite child, she took care in her education (by endeavouring to cultivate in her the spirit of revenge and malice against those who had in the least degree offended her) to turn her mind to all manner of mischief; by which means she lived in a continual passion.