ABSTRACT

MRS. WILLOUGHBY was, at the age of thirty, left a widow with a son and a daughter, of whom she was extremely fond, and to whose education she entirely devoted herself. George Willoughby, her son, had been placed at Eton by his father, but attended by a private tutor, a man of sense and learning, who was distantly related to their family. When he was about thirteen, a fever, from which he narrowly escaped, so injured his constitution, that his mother was directed by his physicians to take him to the South of Europe. Thither she and her daughter, with Mr. Everard, accompanied him. A few months completely restored his health; and they then went all together to Geneva; where, after a short residence, she left her son to pursue his studies under the care of Mr. Everard; and with her daughter Matilda, then near eight years old, she fixed herself for some time at Hieres, on the coast of Provence; a town with whose beauty she had been much struck four or five years before, when, to divert her concern for the loss of her husband, she had made a tour of some months through France and Italy.