maidservant, and thirty for a man.

'The number of this society is now increased to thirty, four ladies
board there, one of whom has two children, and there are five young
ladies, the eldest not above twelve years old, whose mothers being
dead, and their families related to some of the society, their kinswomen
have undertaken their education; these likewise pay a hundred pounds a
year each. It has frequently happened, that widow ladies have come into
this society, till their year of deep mourning was expired.

'With these assistances the society now subsists with the utmost plenty
and convenience, without any additional expense to my good friends,
except a communication of what this park affords; as our steward
provides them with every thing, and has the entire direction of the
household affairs, which he executes with the most sensible economy.'

I should imagine, said I, it were very difficult to preserve a
comfortable harmony among so many persons, and consequently such variety
of tempers?

'Certainly,' answered Mrs Maynard, 'it is not without its difficulties.
For the first year of this establishment my friends dedicated most of
their time and attention to this new community, who were every day
either at the hall, or these ladies with them, endeavouring to cultivate
in this sisterhood that sort of disposition which is most productive of
peace. By their example and suggestions (for it is difficult to give
unreserved advice where you may be suspected of a design to dictate), by
their examples and suggestions therefore, they led them to industry, and
shewed it to be necessary to all stations, as the basis of almost every
virtue. An idle mind, like fallow ground, is the soil for every weed to
grow in; in it vice strengthens, the seed of every vanity flourishes
unmolested and luxuriant; discontent, malignity, ill humour, spread far
and wide, and the mind becomes a chaos which it is beyond human power to
call into order and beauty. This therefore my good friends laboured to
expel from their infant establishment. They taught them that it was the
duty of every person to be of service to others. That those whose hands
and minds were by the favours of fortune exempt from the necessary of
labouring for their own support, ought to be employed for such as are
destitute of these advantages. They got this sisterhood to join with
them in working for the poor people, in visiting, in admonishing, in
teaching them wherever their si