It may not, perhaps, be asking too much of the reader, to request that gentle personage to bear in mind, that in speaking both of the characteristics and the influence of a certain class of females, strict reference has been maintained, throughout the four preceding chapters, to such as may with justice be denominated true English women. With puerile exotics, bending from their own feebleness, and wandering, like weeds, about the British garden, to the hinderance of the growth of all useful plants, this work has little to do, except to point out how they might have been cultivated to better purpose.

I have said of English women, that they are the best fireside companions; but I am afraid that my remark must apply to a very small portion of the community at large. The number of those who are wholly destitute of the highest charm belonging to social companionship, is lamentably great: and these pages would never have been obtruded upon the notice of the public, if there were not strong symptoms of the number becoming greater still.

Women have the choice of many means of bringing their principles into exercise, and of obtaining influence, both in their own domestic sphere, and in society at large. Amongst the most important of these is conversation; an engine so powerful upon the minds and characters of mankind in general, that beauty fades before it, and wealth in comparison is but as leaden coin.