Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/197

Rh, where she found a family of children, whom she treated not with a false indulgence; hut with the care and true concern of a real mother, and was loved and respected by them as if she had been so in reality; of which the bishop was so sensible, that he, by his will then made, left them entirely under her care and authority; and judging rightly, that she brought blessing and happiness enough into his family, by bringing herself into it, desired to secure all her own estate and income to herself, with a power of making such a will as she pleased, to which he bound himself to consent. Thus she continued mistress of all that was her own; but allowed to him, for her expenditure, a sum not exceeding the rate of a boarding house, that so she might have more for charitable purposes; an allowance which the bishop accepted of, though he was desirous, and often told her so, that nothing should be deducted on that account. She was uneasy at using even a fifth part of her income for herself; seldom going beyond, often within it. The number of children taught at her expence, in and about Worcester and Salisbury, were above an hundred.

Notwithstanding the interruptions which a more general acquaintance gave her, she spent as much time as she could, in writing upon divine and moral subjects, and was prevailed upon to consent to printing the first edition of the Method of Devotion. This being very much approved of by many of her friends, she thought she could make it more useful by adding a great deal to it out of many other papers she had by her; and accordingly printed a second edition of it at her own expence, which she disposed of amongst those whom she thought most likely to be profited by it.

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