Preceptress

‘I daily became more amiable, and might perhaps by this time have nearly attained perfection, had not my Preceptoress been torn from my arms, e'er I had attained by seventeenth year.’

Her preceptress had never found it necessary to repeat an admonition of any kind, since her arrival at years to discriminate between the right and the wrong.

She was my sister, my preceptress and friend; but she died--her end was violent, untimely, and criminal!

She had married late in life, having been previously a preceptress in a young ladies' school.