These, however, are not the only efforts she has made towards a
nearer conjunction with our sex. Her fortune was originally no
more than a thousand pounds; but she gained an accession of five
hundred by the death of a sister, and the lieutenant left her
three hundred in his will. These sums she has more than doubled,
by living free of all expence, in her brother's house; and
dealing in cheese and Welsh flannel, the produce of his flocks
and dairy. At present her capital is increased to about four
thousand pounds; and her avarice seems to grow every day more and
more rapacious: but even this is not so intolerable as the
perverseness of her nature, which keeps the whole family in
disquiet and uproar. She is one of those geniuses who find some
diabolical enjoyment in being dreaded and detested by their
fellow-creatures.

I once told my uncle, I was surprised that a man of his
disposition could bear such a domestic plague, when it could be
so easily removed. The remark made him sore, because it seemed to
tax him with want of resolution -- Wrinkling up his nose, and
drawing down his eye-brows, 'A young fellow (said he) when he
first thrusts his snout into the world, is apt to be surprised at
many things which a man of experience knows to be ordinary and
unavoidable -- This precious aunt of yours is become insensibly a
part of my constitution -- Damn her! She's a noli me tangere in my
flesh, which I cannot bear to be touched or tampered with.' I made no
reply; but shifted the conversation. He really has an affection
for this original; which maintains its ground in defiance of
common sense, and in despite of that contempt which he must
certainly feel for her character and understanding. Nay, I am
convinced, that she has likewise a most virulent attachment to