"Miss Priscilla Carter is 16—small of her age, has a mild winning Presence, a sweet obliging Temper, never swears which is here a distinguished virtue, dances finely, plays well on key'd Instruments, is never without what seems to have been a common Gift of Heaven to the fair Sex, the Copia Verborum, or readiness of Expression." (This sweet-tempered fifteen-year-older, a pupil of the Presbyterian tutor, was a young lady of spirit.) "Miss Prissy is much offended! She retains her anger and seems peculiarly resentful, refusing to walk over to the school. Indeed she is much affronted. Monday afternoon by chance I tapp'd her on the Head and wholly in Jest." Five days later the Diary records, "At last Prissy is reconciled," having punished him sufficiently.
Next, Miss Hale, fourteen years old. "She is dressed in a white Holland gown, quilt very fine, a Lawn Apron, has her hair craped high, and upon it a Tuft of Ribbon for a cap. Once I saw her standing. I rose immediately and begged her to accept my Chair. She answered most kindly, 'Sir, I thank you,' and that was all I could extract from this Wonder of her Sex for the two days of the dance, and yet I seemed to have an equal Share in the Favours of her Conversation."
Miss Sally Panton, lately come from England to teach Mr. Turberville's daughters French and English, creates a sensation because she is supposed to have brought with her the latest London fashions. "Her stays are huge, giving her an enormous long Waist. These stays are suited to come up to the upper part of her shoulders, almost to her chin; and are swaithed round her as low as they can possibly be, allowing her no liberty to walk at all. To be sure this is a vastly Modest Dress!" The stays are all right, but "her Head-Dress not to the liking of the Virginia Ladies" being arranged low on the neck, of which they can, on no account approve. "Nevertheless," quoth the tutor, "if her Principles of Religion and her Moral Manner be unexceptionable I shall think her Agreeable."
The last picture thrown on the canvas must be another Miss Lee. "A tall, slim, genteel Girl thirteen years old. She is free from the taciturnity of Miss Hale, yet by no means disagreeably forward. She dances extremely well, and is just beginning to play on the Spinet. She is drest in a neat shell Callico Gown, has very light hair done up high with a feather, and her whole carriage is easy and graceful, and free of formality and Haughtiness, the Common foible here."
For aught we know to the contrary this charming young lady was the beauty who roused an anonymous poet to alliterative verse.
"May mild meridian moonbeams mantle me
With laughing, lisping Lucy Lightfoot Lee."
The ingenuous tutor is delightful. Not once does he interpret the freezing manner, the haughtiness and formality of the maidens to any dislike of himself. Perhaps it did not exist; his successor, also a Presbyterian tutor, married one of them. But not so, I fancy, did these ladies treat young Harry Lee—"our Light-horse Harry," the son of the "Lowland Beauty"—when they met him at the Squire's ball; and surely not thus would the young junior from Princeton College have been impressed by them. One peep within the leaves of that Diary,—a thing impossible to the veriest madcap in his school,—and all would have been over for the Presbyterian tutor, albeit he and young Harry had been college mates.
Two things were absolutely necessary in the etiquette of the minuet,—the pointed foot must be so firm, so straight, that not a crease or wrinkle appeared in the quilted petticoat, and, of course, this quilt must be of a strength and richness: so rich, indeed, that it would "stand alone," yielding not in dance and courtesy.
Evidently Miss Hale at fourteen, and Miss Lee at thirteen, were already in society. In a few years, doubtless, they were all married to Revolutionary officers, two or three, sometimes five, of them falling in course of time to his lot, as was usual in that day of short-lived women. As we have seen, Catherine Willis—afterwards Princess Murat—married at thirteen.