Recollections of a chaperon

“No kind of literature is so generally attractive as Fiction. Pictures of life and manners, and Stories of adventure, are more eagerly received by the many than graver productions, however important these latter may be. APULEIUS is better remembered by his fable of Cupid and Psyche than by his abstruser Platonic writings; and the Decameron of BOCCACCIO has outlived the Latin Treatises, and other learned works of that author.”

RECOLLECTIONS OF A CHAPERON.

COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME.

LONDON: RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET; AND BELL & BRADFUTE, EDINBURGH. 1849.

NOTICE.

The Proprietors of CIRCULATING LIBRARIES in all parts of the country are compelled by the new Copyright Act to discontinue purchasing and lending out a single copy of a foreign edition of an English work. The mere having it in their possession ticketed and marked as a library book exposes them to

A PENALTY OF TEN POUNDS.

By the new Copyright Act and the new Customs Act, even single copies of pirated editions of English Works are prohibited both in Great Britain and the Colonies. Copies so attempted to be passed are seized.

☞ These measures will be rigidly enforced.

[Illustration:

Clara Cawse, pinx. G. Cook sc.

RECOLLECTIONS OF A CHAPERON.

Isabella looked surpassingly beautiful when bending over the marble basin, while she laughingly twisted dahlias into her hair.

London, Published by Richard Bentley, 1848]

RECOLLECTIONS

OF

A CHAPERON.

EDITED BY

LADY DACRE.

LONDON: RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET; AND BELL & BRADFUTE, EDINBURGH. 1849.

LONDON: SPOTTISWOODE and SHAW, New-street-Square.

RECOLLECTIONS

OF

A CHAPERON.

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

I was left a widow with seven daughters. I have married them all, or rather, I have let them marry themselves; for I never took any active measures towards bringing about a result which I own to be a desirable one in a family consisting of seven daughters and one son.

I have seen manœuvring mothers succeed; but I have as often seen them fail in their matrimonial speculations. I have seen dignified mothers with modest daughters, pass year after year, unnoticed and unsought; but I have also seen the unobtrusive daughters of retiring mothers form splendid alliances; and at the very beginning of my career as a Chaperon, I came to the conclusion that, as there was no rule which could ensure success, it was safer and more respectable to do too little than to do too much; better simply to fail, than to fail and to be ridiculous at the same time.

Accordingly, when I had mounted my feathered hat and black velvet gown, or my white satin gown and flowered cap, as the occasion might require, and patiently taken my station upon the chair, seat, or bench which I could most conveniently appropriate to myself, I beguiled the weary hours by studying those around me, trusting for the rest to chance, and to the principles which I had endeavoured to impress upon the minds of my girls; viz. not to flirt so as to attract attention,—not to think too highly of their own pretensions,—and, above all, not to be betrayed into laughing at any man before they knew him, by which means more than one girl of my acquaintance has been obliged, for consistency’s sake, to repulse a person whom, upon further acquaintance, she might have sincerely preferred.

My daughters were not beautiful enough, nor did they marry brilliantly enough, to excite the jealousy of other mothers. I had brought them up to avoid a fault odious in all, but especially so in the young, that of being more ready to perceive the failings than the merits of their companions: we were, therefore, a popular family. I had myself the happy knack of being interested in the concerns and distresses of others, and I listened with pleasure to details however trifling: I had consequently many intimate friends.