Having premised thus much, we will now detain those
who like our bill of fare no longer from their diet,
and shall proceed directly to serve up the first course
of our history for their entertainment.
A short description of squire Allworthy, and a fuller
account of Miss Bridget Allworthy, his sister.
In that part of the western division of this kingdom
which is commonly called Somersetshire, there lately
lived, and perhaps lives still, a gentleman whose
name was Allworthy, and who might well be called the
favourite of both nature and fortune; for both of these
seem to have contended which should bless and enrich
him most. In this contention, nature may seem
to some to have come off victorious, as she bestowed
on him many gifts, while fortune had only one gift
in her power; but in pouring forth this, she was so
very profuse, that others perhaps may think this single
endowment to have been more than equivalent to all
the various blessings which he enjoyed from nature.
From the former of these, he derived an agreeable
person, a sound constitution, a solid understanding,
and a benevolent heart; by the latter, he was decreed
to the inheritance of one of the largest estates in
the county.
This gentleman had in his youth married a very worthy
and beautiful woman, of whom he had been extremely
fond: by her he had three children, all of whom
died in their infancy. He had likewise had the
misfortune of burying this beloved wife herself, about
five years before the time in which this history chuses
to set out. This loss, however great, he bore
like a man of sense and constancy, though it must
be confest he would often talk a little whimsically
on this head; for he sometimes said he looked on himself
as still married, and considered his wife as only
gone a little before him, a journey which he should
most certainly, sooner or later, take after her; and
that he had not the least doubt of meeting her again
in a place where he should never part with her more—sentiments
for which his sense was arraigned by one part of his
neighbours, his religion by a second, and his sincerity
by a third.
He now lived, for the most part, retired in the country,
with one sister, for whom he had a very tender affection.
This lady was now somewhat past the age of thirty,
an aera at which, in the opinion of the malicious,
the title of old maid may with no impropriety be assumed.
She was of that species of women whom you commend rather
for good qualities than beauty, and who are generally
called, by their own sex, very good sort of women—as
good a sort of woman, madam, as you would wish to
know. Indeed, she was so far from regretting want
of beauty, that she never mentioned that perfection,
if it can be called one, without contempt; and would
often thank God she was not as handsome as Miss Such-a-one,
whom perhaps beauty had led into errors which she
might have otherwise avoided. Miss Bridget Allworthy
