_ Our neighbourhood was small, for it consisted only of your
Mother. She may probably have already told you that being left
by her Parents in indigent Circumstances she had retired into
Wales on eoconomical motives. There it was our freindship first
commenced. Isobel was then one and twenty. Tho' pleasing both
in her Person and Manners (between ourselves) she never possessed
the hundredth part of my Beauty or Accomplishments. Isabel had
seen the World. She had passed 2 Years at one of the first
Boarding-schools in London; had spent a fortnight in Bath and had
supped one night in Southampton.
"Beware my Laura (she would often say) Beware of the insipid
Vanities and idle Dissipations of the Metropolis of England;
Beware of the unmeaning Luxuries of Bath and of the stinking fish
of Southampton."
"Alas! (exclaimed I) how am I to avoid those evils I shall never
be exposed to? What probability is there of my ever tasting the
Dissipations of London, the Luxuries of Bath, or the stinking
Fish of Southampton? I who am doomed to waste my Days of Youth
and Beauty in an humble Cottage in the Vale of Uske."
Ah! little did I then think I was ordained so soon to quit that
humble Cottage for the Deceitfull Pleasures of the World.
Adeiu
Laura. _