In the outer parlour, or rather shop, sat three young
women, very demurely employ'd on millinery work, which was
the cover of a traffic in more precious commodities; but
three beautifuller creatures could hardly be seen. Two of
them were extremely fair, the eldest not above nineteen;
and the third, much about that age, was a piquant brunette,
whose black sparkling eyes, and perfect harmony of features
and shape, left her nothing to envy in her fairer companions.
Their dress too had the more design in it, the less it ap-
peared to have, being in a taste of uniform correct neatness,
and elegant simplicity. These were the girls that compos'd
the small domestick flock, which my governess train'd up with
surprising order and management, considering the giddy wild-
ness of young girls once got upon the loose. But then she
never continued any in her house, whom, after a due novitiate,
she found untractable, or unwilling to comply with the rules
of it. Thus had she insensibly formed a little family of
love, in which the members found so sensibly their account,
in a rare alliance of pleasure with interest, and of a
necessary outward decency with unbounded secret liberty,
that Mrs. Cole, who had pick'd them as much for their temper
as their beauty, govern'd them with ease to herself and them
too.
To these pupils then of hers, whom she had prepar'd,
she presented me as a new boarder, and one that was to be
immediately admitted to all the intimacies of the house; upon
which these charming girls gave me all the marks of a welcome
reception, and indeed of being perfectly pleased with my
figure, that I could possibly expect from any of my own sex:
but they had been effectually brought to sacrifice all jeal-
ousy, or competition of charms, to a common interest, and
consider'd me a partner that was bringing no despicable stock
of goods into the trade of the house.
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