Her first THREE morning hours
were generally passed in her study, and in her closet duties: and were occasionally augmented by those she saved from rest: and in these passed her epistolary amusements.
Two hours she generally allotted to domestic management.
These, at different times of the day, as occasions required; all the housekeeper's bills, in ease of her mother, passing through her hands. For she was a perfect mistress of the four principal rules of arithmetic.
FIVE hours to her needle, drawings, music, &c.
In these she included the assistance and inspection she gave to her own servants, and to her sister's servants, in the needle-works required for the family: for her sister, as I have above hinted, is a MODERN. In these she also included Dr. Lewen's conversation-visits; with whom likewise she held a correspondence by letters. That reverend gentleman delighted himself and her twice or thrice a week, if his health permitted, with these visits: and she always preferred his company to any other engagement.
Two hours she allotted to her two first meals.
But if conversation, or the desire of friends, or the falling in of company or guests, required it to be otherwise, she never scrupled to oblige; and would on such occasions borrow, as she called it, from other distributions. And as she found it very hard not to exceed in this appropriation, she put down
ONE hour more to dinner-time conversation,
to be added or subtracted, as occasions offered, or the desire of her friends required: and yet found it difficult, as she often said, to keep this account even; especially if Dr. Lewen obliged them with his company at their table; which, however he seldom did; for, being a valetudinarian, and in a regimen, he generally made his visits in the afternoon.