and her silkworms.  At eleven she read for an hour, and after an early dinner would take a siesta.  Then she played picquet or whist with some friendly priests.  In the evening she walked in the woods, or rode, or went on the lake.  “I enjoy every amusement that solitude can afford,” she said.  “I confess I sometimes wish for a little conversation, but I reflect that the commerce of the world gives more uneasiness than pleasure, and quiet is all the hope that can reasonably be indulged at my age.”  It would not have been Lady Mary if she had not kept a keen eye on the pence.  She was delighted to be able to say in relation to her house and grounds that “all things have hitherto prospered under my care; my bees and silkworms are doubled, and I am told that, without accidents, my capital will be so in two years’ time.”  She enjoyed the more her evening now and her fish at dinner, because neither cost her anything.  “The fishery of this part of the river belongs to me; and my fisherman’s little boat (where I have a green lutestring awning) serves me for a barge.  He and his sons are my rowers without expense, he being very well paid by the profit of the fish, which I give him on condition of having every day one dish for my table.”

Age dealt gently with Lady Mary.  At the age of sixty-two, she could say that her hearing and her memory were good, and her sight better than she had any right to expect.  She had appetite enough to relish what she ate, slept as soundly as she had ever done, and had never a headache.  Still, the fact was forced upon her that she was no longer so young as she had been—­which unpleasing reflection she accepted philosophically enough.

“I no more expect to arrive at the age of the Duchess of Marlborough[19] than to that of Methusalem; neither do I desire it” (she wrote to Lady Bute in the early spring of 1751).  “I have long thought myself useless to the world.  I have seen one generation pass away; and it is gone; for I think there are very few of those left that flourished in my youth.  You will perhaps call these melancholy reflections:  they are not so.  There is a quiet after the abandoning of pursuits, something like the rest that follows a laborious day.  I tell you this for your comfort.  It was formerly a terrifying view to me, that I should one day be an old woman.  I now find that Nature has provided pleasures for every state.  Those are only unhappy who will not be contented with what she gives, but strive to break through her laws, by affecting a perpetuity of youth which appears to me as little desirable at present as the babies do to you, that were the delight of your infancy.”

[Footnote 19:  The Duchess of Marlborough was born on May 29, 1660, and died on October 18, 1744.]

She reverted to the same subject when writing to her husband a month or two later: