This remonstrance had the proper effect. They went with great composure, that very instant, to change their dress; and the next day I had the satisfaction of finding my daughters, at their own request, employed in cutting up their trains into Sunday waist-coats for Dick and Bill, the two little ones; and, what was still more satisfactory, the gowns seemed improved by this [v]curtailing.
But the reformation lasted but for a short while. My wife and daughters were visited by the wives of some of the richer neighbors and by a squire who lived near by, on whom they set more store than on the plain farmers’ wives who were nearer us in worldly station. I now began to find that all my long and painful lectures upon temperance, simplicity, and contentment were entirely disregarded. Some distinctions lately paid us by our betters awakened that pride which I had laid asleep, but not removed. Our windows again, as formerly, were filled with washes for the neck and face. The sun was dreaded as an enemy to the skin without doors and the fire as a spoiler of the complexion within. My wife observed that rising too early would hurt her daughters’ eyes, that working after dinner would redden their noses, and she convinced me that the hands never looked so white as when they did nothing.
Instead, therefore, of finishing George’s shirts, we now had the girls new-modeling their old gauzes. The poor Miss Flamboroughs, their former gay companions, were cast off as mean acquaintance, and the whole conversation ran upon high life and high-lived company, with pictures, taste, and Shakespeare.
But we could have borne all this, had not a fortune-telling gypsy come to raise us into perfect [v]sublimity. The tawny [v]sibyl no sooner appeared than my girls came running to me for a shilling apiece to cross her hand with silver. To say the truth, I was tired of being always wise, and could not help gratifying their request, because I loved to see them happy. I gave each of them a shilling; after they had been closeted up with the fortune-teller for some time, I knew by their looks, upon their returning, that they had been promised something great.
“Well, my girls, how have you sped? Tell me, Livy, has the fortune-teller given thee a penny-worth?”
“She positively declared that I am to be married to a squire in less than a twelvemonth.”
“Well, now, Sophy, my child,” said I, “and what sort of husband are you to have?”
“I am to have a lord soon after my sister has married the squire,” she replied.
“How,” cried I, “is that all you are to have for your two shillings? Only a lord and a squire for two shillings! You fools, I could have promised you a prince and a [v]nabob for half the money.”
This curiosity of theirs, however, was attended with very serious effects. We now began to think ourselves designed by the stars to something exalted, and already anticipated our future grandeur.