All that is necessary to add to the history of these unhappy women, will be comprised in a very little compass.
After the death of the profligate Sinclair, they kept on the infamous trade with too much success; till an accident happened in the house—a gentleman of family killed in it in a fray, contending with another for a new-vamped face. Sally was accused of holding the gentleman’s arm, while his more-favoured adversary ran him through the heart, and then made off. And she being tried for her life narrowly escaped.
This accident obliged them to break up housekeeping; and not having been frugal enough of their ill-gotten gains, (lavishing upon one what they got by another), they were compelled, for subsistence sake, to enter themselves as under-managers at such another house as their own had been. In which service, soon after, Sally died of a fever and surfeit got by a debauch; and the other, about a month after, by a violent cold, occasioned through carelessness in a salivation.
Happier scenes open for the remaining characters; for it might be descending too low to mention the untimely ends of Dorcas, and of William, Mr. Lovelace’s wicked servant; and the pining and consumptive one’s of Betty Barnes and Joseph Leman, unmarried both, and in less than a year after the happy death of their excellent young lady.
The good Mrs. Norton passed the small remainder of her life, as happily as she wished, in her beloved foster-daughter’s dairy-house, as it used to be called: as she wished, we repeat; for she had too strong aspirations after another life, to be greatly attached to this.
She laid out the greatest part of her time in doing good by her advice, and by the prudent management of the fund committed to her direction. Having lived an exemplary life from her youth upwards; and seen her son happily settled in the world; she departed with ease and calmness, without pang or agony, like a tired traveller, falling into a sweet slumber: her last words expressing her hope of being restored to the child of her bosom; and to her own excellent father and mother, to whose care and pains she owed that good education to which she was indebted for all her other blessings.
The poor’s fund, which was committed to her care, she resigned a week before her death, into the hands of Mrs. Hickman, according the direction of the will, and all the accounts and disbursements with it; which she had kept with such an exactness, that the lady declares, that she will follow her method, and only wishes to discharge the trust as well.
Miss Howe was not to be persuaded to quit her mourning for her dear friend, until six months were fully expired: and then she made Mr. Hickman one of the happiest men in the world. A woman of her fine sense and understanding, married to a man of virtue and good-nature, (who had no past capital errors to reflect upon, and to abate his joys, and whose behaviour to Mrs. Hickman is as affectionate as it was respectful to Miss Howe), could not do otherwise. They are already blessed with two fine children; a daughter, to whom, by joint consent, they have given the name of her beloved friend; an a son, who bears that of his father.
She has allotted to Mr. Hickman, who takes delight in doing good, (and that as much for its own sake, as to oblige her), his part of the management of the poor’s fund; to be accountable for it, as she pleasantly says, to her. She has appropriated every Thursday morning for her part of that management; and takes so much delight in the task, that she declares it to be one of the most agreeable of her amusements. And the more agreeable, as she teaches everyone whom she benefits, to bless the memory of her departed friend; to whom she attributes the merit of all her own charities, as well as the honour of those which she dispenses in pursuance of her will.
She has declared, That this fund shall never fail while she lives. She has even engaged her mother to contribute annually to it. And Mr. Hickman has appropriated twenty pounds a year to the same. In consideration of which she allows him to recommend four objects yearly to partake of it.—Allows, is her style; for she assumes the whole prerogative of dispensing this charity; the only prerogative she does or has occasion to assume. In every other case, there is but one will between them; and that is generally his or hers, as either speaks first, upon any subject, be it what it will. Mrs. Hickman, she sometimes as pleasantly as generously tells him, must not quite forget that she was once Miss Howe, because if he had not loved her as such, and with all her foibles, she had never been Mrs. Hickman. Nevertheless she seriously, on all occasions, and that to others as well as to himself, confesses that she owes him unreturnable obligations for his patience with her in her day, and for his generous behaviour to her in his.
And still more the highly does she esteem and love him, as she reflects upon his past kindness to her beloved friend; and on
