This "Miss Becca" was Rebecca Salisbury, born April 7, 1731, died
September 25, 1811. She was a fine, high-spirited young woman, and
upon being taunted by a rejected lover with,
"The proverb old--you know it well,
That women dying maids, lead apes in hell,"
(a belief referred to in _Taming of the Shrew_, Act II. Scene 1),
she made this clever rhyming answer:--
"Lead apes in hell--tis no such thing;
The story's told to fool us.
But better there to hold a string,
Than here let monkeys lead us."
She married Daniel Waldo May 3, 1757. The "very pretty Misses" were
their daughters; Elizabeth, born November 24, 1765, died unmarried
in Worcester, August 28, 1845; and Martha (who in this diary is
called Patty), born September 14, 1761, died November 25, 1828. She
married Levi Lincoln, Lieutenant-Governor of Massachusetts, and
became the mother of Levi Lincoln, Governor of Massachusetts, Enoch
Lincoln, Governor of Maine, and Col. John Lincoln.