A bed is different from a tomb.—Creech.
Parthenia addresses a letter to the 'Rambler' on the subject of the troubles she suffers from the frivolous desire which her mother, a widow, has contracted to practise the follies of youth, the pursuit of which she finds fettered by the presence of Parthenia, whom she is inclined to regard not as her daughter, but as a rival dangerous to the admiration which the elder lady would confine to herself.
After a year of decent mourning had been devoted to deploring the loss of Parthenia's father—'All the officiousness of kindness and folly was busied to change the conduct of the widow. She was at one time alarmed with censure, and at another fired with praise. She was told of balls where others shone only because she was absent, of new comedies to which all the town was crowding, and of many ingenious ironies by which domestic diligence was made contemptible.
'It is difficult for virtue to stand alone against fear on one side and pleasure on the other, especially when no actual crime is proposed, and prudence itself can suggest many reasons for relaxation and indulgence. My mamma was at last persuaded to accompany Mrs. Giddy to a play. She was received with a boundless profusion of compliments, and attended home by a very fine gentleman. Next day she was, with less difficulty, prevailed on to play at Mrs. Gravely's, and came home gay and lively, for the distinctions that had been paid her awakened her vanity, and good luck had kept her principles of frugality from giving her disturbance. She now made her second entrance into the world, and her friends were sufficiently industrious to prevent any return to her former life; every morning brought messages of invitation, and every evening was passed in places of diversion, from which she for some time complained that she had rather be absent. In a short time she began to feel the happiness of acting without control, of being unaccountable for her hours, her expenses, and her company, and learned by degrees to drop an expression of contempt or pity at the mention of ladies whose husbands were suspected of restraining their pleasures or their play, and confessed that she loved to go and come as she pleased.
'My mamma now began to discover that it was impossible to educate children properly at home. Parents could not have them always in their sight; the society of servants was contagious; company produced boldness and spirit; emulation excited industry; and a large school was naturally the first step into the open world. A thousand other reasons she alleged, some of little force in themselves, but so well seconded by pleasure, vanity, and idleness, that they soon overcame all the remaining principles of kindness and piety, and both I and my brother were despatched to boarding-schools.
'When I came home again, after sundry vacations, and, with the usual childish alacrity, was running to my mother's embrace, she stopped me with exclamations at the suddenness and enormity of my growth, having, she said, never seen anybody shoot up so much at my age.
'She was sure no other girls spread at that rate, and she hated to have children look like women before their time. I was disconcerted, and retired without hearing anything more than "Nay, if you are angry, Madam Steeple, you may walk off."
'She had yet the pleasure of dressing me like a child, and I know not when I should have been thought fit to change my habit, had I not been rescued by a maiden aunt of my father, who could not bear to see women in hanging-sleeves, and therefore presented me with brocade for a gown, for which I should have thought myself under great obligations, had she not accompanied her favour with some hints that my mamma might now consider her age, and give me her earrings, which she had shown long enough in public places.