Sophy Benson, when she was only eleven years old, could write, read, draw, and play on the piano-forte, better than any little girl of her age in the whole neighbourhood; she was obedient to her papa and mamma, affectionate to her brothers and sisters, and would do any thing to oblige her friends, except going up stairs after night, staying in the garden alone a moment after the dusk of the evening, or going to bed before her sister. On these points, though she really wished to shew a readiness to do as she was desired, and had often attempted to do so, she never had been able to find resolution sufficient to carry her through with it; for she had heard of ghosts, giants, fairies, and monsters of divers kinds, and was never an instant alone in the dark, without expecting to see one or the other; concluding, it must be imagined, that it was customary with those gentlemen and ladies to pay their visits, each with a wax taper in their hands, to exhibit their persons by.