ar from loving these spoiled brutes that filled
the place which her children ought to have occupied, she only
lisped out a pretty mixture of French and English nonsense, to
please the men who flocked round her. The wife, mother, and human
creature were all swallowed up by the factitious character which an
improper education and the selfish vanity of beauty had produced.

"I do not like to make a distinction without a difference, and I
own that I have been as much disgusted by the fine lady who took
her lap-dog to her bosom, instead of her child, as by the ferocity
of a man, who beating his horse, declared that he knew as well when
he did wrong as a Christian."

If Lady Kingsborough was a representative lady of fashion, her husband
was quite as much the typical country lord. Tom Jones was still the ideal
hero of fiction, and Squire Westerns had not disappeared from real life.
Lord Kingsborough was good-natured and kind, but, like the rest of the
species, coarse. "His countenance does not promise more than good humor
and a little _fun_, not refined," Mary told Mrs. Bishop. The three
step-sisters were too preoccupied with matrimonial calculations to
manifest their character, if indeed they had any. Clearly, in such a
household Mary Wollstonecraft was as a child of Israel among the
Philistines.

The society of the children, though they were "wild Irish," was more to
her taste than that of the grown-up members of the family. Three were
given into her charge. At first she thought them not very pleasing, but
after a better acquaintance she grew fond of them. The eldest, Margaret,
afterwards Lady Mountcashel, was then fourteen years of age. She was very
talented, and a "sweet girl," as Mary called her in a letter to Mrs.
Bishop. She became deeply attached to her new governess, not with the
passing fancy of a child, but with a lasting devotion. The other children
also learned to love her, but being younger there was less friendship in
their affection. They were afraid of their mother, who lavished her
caresses upon her dogs, until she had none left for them. Therefore, when
Mary treated them affectionately and sympathized with their interests and
pleasures, they naturally turned to her and gave her the love which no
one else seemed to want. That this was the case was entirely Lady
Kingsborough's fault, but she resented it bitterly, and it was later a
cause of serious complaint