on. I
connected with it the hope, that, in a more extended survey, I might be
more likely to select a deserving companion for life. "In such a
companion," said I, as I drove along in my post-chaise, "I do not want a
Helen, a Saint Cecilia, or a Madame Dacier; yet she must be elegant, or
I should not love her; sensible, or I should not respect her; prudent,
or I could not confide in her; well-informed, or she could not educate
my children; well-bred, or she could not entertain my friends;
_consistent_, or I should offend the shade of my mother; pious, or I
should not be happy with her, because the prime comfort in a companion
for life is the delightful hope that she will be a companion for
eternity."

After this soliloquy, I was frightened to reflect that so much was
requisite; and yet when I began to consider in which article I could
make any abatement, I was willing to persuade myself that my
requisitions were moderate.

CHAPTER III.

I had occasionally visited two or three families in our own county, who
were said to make a very genteel appearance on narrow fortunes. As I was
known not to consider money as a principal consideration, it had often
been intimated to me what excellent wives the daughters of these
families would make, because on a very slender allowance their
appearance was as elegant as that of women of ten times their
expectations. I translated this respectable appearance into a language
not the most favorable, as I instantly inferred, and afterward was
convinced, that this personal figure was made by the sacrifice of their
whole time to those decorations which procured them credit, by putting
their outward figure on a par with the most affluent. If a girl with a
thousand pounds rivals in her dress one with ten thousand, is it not
obvious, that not only all her time must be employed, but all her money
devoted to this one object? Nothing but the clippings and parings from
her personal adornments could enable her to supply the demands of
charity; and these sacrifices, it is evident she is not disposed to
make.

Another inducement suggested to me was, that these young ladies would
make the better wives, because they had never been corrupted by the
expensive pleasures of London, and had not been spoiled by the gay
scenes of dissipation which it afforded. This argument would have
weighed powerfully with me, had I not observed, that they never
abstained from any amusement in the country that came