The Coquette

Eliza finds herself increasingly unable to write. 

Mrs. Richman has lost her baby, Harriot. Eliza notes that “It was a custom with some of the ancients, we are told, to weep at the birth of our children” and that, given how the events of life unfold, it is a custom to be taken up again (134). 

Nothing much has changed recently in Eliza’s neighborhood. She continues her new, reclusive mode of living. She is uninterested by anything that once brought her amusement. 

Eliza continues to put up a cheerful front for her mother’s sake. She looks forward to and dreads Julia’s next visit.

Julia has been gone for longer than she intended, but she is at last returning to Eliza. Julia is impressed with Lucy’s conduct as a moral, married woman, and endeavors to be more like her. 

Julia plans to visit in a month, and suggests they visit Mrs. Richman when she does.

Julia returns to Hartford to find a grim change of mood has taken place. Mrs. Wharton is grave; Eliza bursts into tears of joy upon seeing Julia. 

Eliza laments the sad change in her appearance and bearing, that she is no longer the “sprightly girl, who was always welcome at the haunts of hilarity and mirth” (138).