Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/102

33 she endured with the greatest intrepidity. But her health and strength, after this, declined apace, and at length being confined to her bed, and finding the time of her dissolution drew nigh, she ordered her coffin and shroud to be made, and brought to her bed-side, as a constant memento of her approaching fate, and that her mind might not stray one moment from God, its proper object. Her thoughts were so entirely fixed on another world, that for some days before her death she earnestly desired that no company, not even her dearest friends, might be permitted to come to her, that she might not be disturbed in her last moments. She was buried at Chelsea.

By the care of her father, Athenais received a most elegant and liberal education. To the learning and philosophy of the Greeks, she added the arts of elocution and music, and being likewise exceedingly beautiful, her father, on his death, left her only one hundred pieces of gold; saying, that her unequalled merit was a sufficient portion. Shocked at this unjust distribution, and at the scanty resource left to her, who had been accustomed to live in affluence, Athenais implored her brothers not to insist upon the will, but to permit her to come in for her share of the inheritance. Alive only to interest, they refused her request with harshness, and forced her to seek a home with an aunt by the mother's side. This lady, in concert with a sister