1796


PREFACE.

As this treatise is calculated for the improvement of the rising
generation of _Females_ in America, the Lady of fashion and fortune
will not be displeased, if many hints are suggested for the more
general and universal knowledge of those females in this country, who
by the loss of their parents, or other unfortunate circumstances, are
reduced to the necessity of going into families in the line of
domestics, or taking refuge with their friends or relations, and doing
those things which are really essential to the perfecting them as good
wives, and useful members of society. The orphan, tho' left to the
care of virtuous guardians, will find it essentially necessary to have
an opinion and determination of her own. The world, and the fashion
thereof, is so variable, that old people cannot accommodate themselves
to the various changes and fashions which daily occur; _they_ will
adhere to the fashion of _their_ day, and will not surrender their
attachments to the _good old way_--while the young and the gay, bend
and conform readily to the taste of the times, and fancy of the hour.
By having an opinion and determination, I would not be understood to
mean an obstinate perseverance in trifles, which borders on
obstinacy--by no means, but only an adherence to those rules and
maxims which have flood the test of ages, and will forever establish
the _female character_, a virtuous character--altho' they conform to
the ruling taste of the age in cookery, dress, language, manners, &c.

It must ever remain a check upon the poor solitary orphan, that while
those females who have parents, or brothers, or riches, to defend