In due time she brought forth a son, a feeble babe; and the following year a daughter.  After the mother’s throes she felt very few sentiments of maternal tenderness:  the children were given to nurses, and she played with her dogs.  Want of exercise prevented the least chance of her recovering strength; and two or three milk-fevers brought on a consumption, to which her constitution tended.  Her children all died in their infancy, except the two first, and she began to grow fond of the son, as he was remarkably handsome.  For years she divided her time between the sofa, and the card-table.  She thought not of death, though on the borders of the grave; nor did any of the duties of her station occur to her as necessary.  Her children were left in the nursery; and when Mary, the little blushing girl, appeared, she would send the awkward thing away.  To own the truth, she was awkward enough, in a house without any play-mates; for her brother had been sent to school, and she scarcely knew how to employ herself; she would ramble about the garden, admire the flowers, and play with the dogs.  An old house-keeper told her stories, read to her, and, at last, taught her to read.  Her mother talked of enquiring for a governess when her health would permit; and, in the interim desired her own maid to teach her French.  As she had learned to read, she perused with avidity every book that came in her way.  Neglected in every respect, and left to the operations of her own mind, she considered every thing that came under her inspection, and learned to think.  She had heard of a separate state, and that angels sometimes visited this earth.  She would sit in a thick wood in the park, and talk to them; make little songs addressed to them, and sing them to tunes of her own composing; and her native wood notes wild were sweet and touching.

Her father always exclaimed against female acquirements, and was glad that his wife’s indolence and ill health made her not trouble herself about them.  She had besides another reason, she did not wish to have a fine tall girl brought forward into notice as her daughter; she still expected to recover, and figure away in the gay world.  Her husband was very tyrannical and passionate; indeed so very easily irritated when inebriated, that Mary was continually in dread lest he should frighten her mother to death; her sickness called forth all Mary’s tenderness, and exercised her compassion so continually, that it became more than a match for self-love, and was the governing propensity of her heart through life.  She was violent in her temper; but she saw her father’s faults, and would weep when obliged to compare his temper with her own.—­She did more; artless prayers rose to Heaven for pardon, when she was conscious of having erred; and her contrition was so exceedingly painful, that she watched diligently the first movements of anger and impatience, to save herself this cruel remorse.