LOCKIT.

Miss Patty Lockit was but ten years old; tall, inclined to fat. Her
neck was short; and she was not in the least genteel. Her face was very
handsome; for all her features were extremely good. She had large blue
eyes; was exceeding fair; and had a great bloom on her cheeks. Her hair
was the very first degree of light brown; was bright and shining; and
hung in ringlets half way down her back. Her mouth was rather too large;
but she had such fine teeth, and looked so agreeably when she smiled,
that you was not sensible of any fault in it.

This was the person of Miss Patty Lockit, who was slow to relate her
past life; which she did, in the following manner:

THE LIFE OF MISS PATTY LOCKIT.

I lived, till I was six years old, in a very large family; for I had
four sisters, all older than myself, and three brothers. We played
together, and passed our time much in the common way: sometimes we
quarrelled, and sometimes agreed, just as accident would have it. Our
parents had no partiality to any of us; so we had no cause to envy one
another on that account; and we lived tolerably well together.

'When I was six years old, my grandmother by my father's side (and
who was also my godmother) offering to take me to live with her, and
promising to look upon me as her own child, and entirely to provide
for me, my father and mother, as they had a large family, very readily
accepted her offer, and sent me directly to her house.

'About half a year before this, she had taken another goddaughter, the
only child of my Aunt Bradly, who was lately dead, and whose husband was
gone to the West Indies. My cousin, Molly Bradly, was four years older
than I; and her mother had taken such pains in her education, that the
understood more than most girls of her age; and had so much liveliness,
good humour, and ingenuity, that everybody was fond of her; and wherever
we went together, all the notice was taken of my cousin, and I was very
little regarded.

'Though I had all my life before lived in a family where every one in it
was older, and knew more than myself, yet I was very easy; for we were
generally together in the nursery; and nobody took much notice of us,
whether we knew anything, or whether we did not. But now, as I lived
in the house with only one companion, who was so much more admired than
myself, the comparison began to vex me, and I found a strong hatred and
aversion for my cousin arising in my mind; and yet, I veri