were generally passed in her study, and in her closet duties: and were
occasionally augmented by those she saved from rest: and in these passed
her epistolary amusements.
Two hours she generally allotted to domestic management.
These, at different times of the day, as occasions required; all the
housekeeper's bills, in ease of her mother, passing through her hands.
For she was a perfect mistress of the four principal rules of arithmetic.
FIVE hours to her needle, drawings, music, &c.
In these she included the assistance and inspection she gave to her own
servants, and to her sister's servants, in the needle-works required for
the family: for her sister, as I have above hinted, is a MODERN. In
these she also included Dr. Lewen's conversation-visits; with whom
likewise she held a correspondence by letters. That reverend gentleman
delighted himself and her twice or thrice a week, if his health
permitted, with these visits: and she always preferred his company to any
other engagement.
Two hours she allotted to her two first meals.
But if conversation, or the desire of friends, or the falling in of
company or guests, required it to be otherwise, she never scrupled to
oblige; and would on such occasions borrow, as she called it, from other
distributions. And as she found it very hard not to exceed in this
appropriation, she put down
ONE hour more to dinner-time conversation,
to be added or subtracted, as occasions offered, or the desire of her
friends required: and yet found it difficult, as she often said, to keep
this account even; especially if Dr. Lewen obliged them with his company
at their table; which, however he seldom did; for, being a
valetudinarian, and in a regimen, he generally made his visits in the
afternoon.
ONE hour to visits to the neighbouring poor;
to a select number of whom, and to their children, she used to give brief
instructions, and good books; and as this happened not every day, and
seldom above twice a-week, she had two or three hours at a time to bestow
in this benevolent employment.