From the time I was two years old, (said Miss Lucy) my mamma was so
sickly, that she was unable to take any great care of me herself, and I
was left to the care of a governess, who made it her study to bring me
to do what she had a mind to have done, without troubling her head what
induced me so to do. And whenever I did anything wrong, she used to say
it was the foot-boy, and not miss, that was naughty. Nay, she would say,
it was the dog, or the cat, or anything she could lay the blame upon,
sooner than own it was me. I thought this pure, that I was never in
fault; and soon got into a way of telling any lies, and of laying my own
faults on others, since I found I should be believed. I remember once,
when I had broken a fine china-cup, that I artfully got out of the
scrape, and hid the broken cup in the foot-boy’s room. He was whipped
for breaking it; and the next day whilst I was at play about the room,
I heard my governess say to a friend who was with her, “Yesterday Miss
Lucy broke a china-cup; but the artful little hussy went and hid it
in the foot-boy’s room, and the poor boy was whipped for it. I don’t
believe there was ever a girl of her age that had half her cunning and
contrivance.” I knew by her tone of voice, and her manner of speaking,
that she did not blame me in her heart, but rather commended my
ingenuity. And I thought myself so wise, that I could thus get off the
blame from myself, that I every day improved in new inventions to save
myself, and have others punished in my place.
‘This life of endeavouring to deceive I led till I came to school. But
here I found that I could not so well carry on my little schemes; for I
was found out and punished for my own faults; and this created in me a
hatred to my companions. For whatever Miss I had a mind to serve as I
used to serve our foot-boy, in laying the blame falsely upon her, if she
could justify herself, and prove me in the wrong, I was very angry with
her, for daring to contradict me, and not submitting as quietly to be
punished wrongfully, as the foot-boy was forced to do.
‘This is all I know of my life hitherto.’
Thus ended Miss Lucy Sly: and Miss Jenny Peace commended Miss Lucy for
her free confession of her faults, and said, ‘She doubted not but she
would find the advantage of amending, and endeavouring to change a
disposition so very pernicious to her own peace and quiet, as well as
to that of all her friends;’ but they now obeyed the summons of the
supper-bell, and soon after retired to rest.