spring-carts, gentlefolks on horseback and in carriages; all dressed in their best and sporting blue and red ribbons. In this town bands of music headed processions of school-children, militiamen and clubs marching to church or chapel; in that, oxen and sheep were roasting in the streets, and big barrels of ale were tapped or ready to tap. Here, divine service being over, the congregations streamed out to feast. There, a smell of roast beef and mutton pervaded the inn where we halted, with a hurrying to and fro, a clatter, laughter, singing, and hurrahing that were deafening. On we drove, through villages and towns where the lower class, including the paupers, were being entertained at long tables in the open air, the families of the squire and clergyman looking on all smiles and good-humour. As the day advanced the madder grew the revel. We felt as if we were out to see the fun. Horses and chaises were not always ready at the towns where we expected relays, and as we waited people in their turn eyed us -the pleasant-looking Quaker mother and her two quaintly dressed little daughters overflowing with ill-suppressed wonder and merriment.

During the evening the sight of drunkenness and sound of quarrelling, although accompanied by strains of the incessant music, somewhat damped our mirth, but it rose again as we entered Dunstable, our night quarters. The effect was magical: one vast blaze of light, great G. R.s shining forth everywhere, a daz zled and enchanted sea of spectators. The gentlemen of the neighbourhood had dined at our inn, a grand ball was about to begin. The obliging landlady led us to an upper gallery, whence we could look down on the arrivals. Mother, who accompanied us, even permitted us to watch the opening dance; perhaps she herself enjoyed this glimpse of the gay moving scene, for she did not reprove me when, overcome by the day's excitement, by the music and flutter, I was seized with an uncontrollable fit of laughter.

The next day we were in London-London! How the very thought transported us with joy and astonishment. But London was not half as brilliant as Dunstable-was, in fact, quite gloomy. Extinct crowns, stars, and G. R.s blankly met our gaze, and, whilst bearing evidence to what had been, suggested the ashes of a fire that had gone out or the wrong side of a piece of tapestry. We dined in London, and were rather sad, for we must soon part from our mother. We were not to return home at Christmas-we as Friends never kept Christmas, with the exception of

having mince-pies-but mother would come to Yearly Meeting in the spring, and then have us with her.

How much could I relate of our Croydon experiences, which nevertheless lasted only seven months! The many mortifications. caused us as the children of rigidly plain Friends out of a remote midland county brought into the midst of London girls, all belonging to the same denomination, it is true, but whose Quakerly attire and life-experience were less precise, were even different from ours. We were the youngest in the school, peculiar, provincial, but I do not think in general knowledge we were behind the others. We seemed to them, however, to have come from the uttermost ends of the earth; even the word Uttoxeter seemed to them uncouth, and caused laughter. Although we felt this behaviour keenly, our love of each other, of nature, the beautiful and poetical, came to our aid and consoled us. If my sister had a passionate love of flowers, I was equally endowed with a deep appreciation of trees: the Scotch firs in our garden at home, the spruce firs, arbor vitæ, and Weymouth pine of a neighbour, the group of tall poplars, which I never failed to see, sitting in our silent meeting, and which seemed pointing to heaven, had been dear familiar friends from infancy. What a happiness, then, to be allowed at school our own little garden with a fine holly-tree belonging exclusively to ourselves!

Another great pleasure and advantage was the habit of making, during the fine weather, long excursions of almost weekly recurrence. At about eleven the pupils, attended by one of the mistresses, set out, the train being ended by a stout serving-woman, who drew after her a light tilted waggon containing abundant provisions for our mid-day meal. So through Croydon we went to the open country, to the Addington Hills, or as far as Norwood, all no doubt now covered or scattered over with houses; up and down pleasant lanes where the clematis, which we only knew as a garden plant, wreathed the hedges. Now and then we rested on some breezy common with views opening far and wide. Sometimes we passed through extensive lavender-fields in which women were working, or came upon an encampment of gipsies with their tents and tethered horses, looking to us more oriental than any similar encampment in our more northern lanes.

Brought south and into proximity with the capital, we were met at every point by objects new to our small experience, whose beauty, grandeur, or perfect novelty stirred

the very depths of my child-soul. Much that was attractive at the same time troubled me, filling my heart with indescribable sadness, awakening within me an unappeasable longing for I knew not what. It was my first perception of the dignity and charm of culture. My impressionable mind had already yielded to the power of nature; it was now to feel and accept the control of art. Yet I was at the time in my ugly, unusually plain Quaker garb, no better to look at than a little brown chrysalis, in the narrow cell of whose being, however, the first early sunbeam was awakening the germ of a higher existence. The stately mansions with all their latest appliances of luxury and ease their sunshades, their balconies filled with flowers, the graceful creepers wreathing colonnades, heavy-branched cedar-trees, temple-like summerhouses half concealed in bowery garden solitudes, distant waters, winding walks, belonged to a new, vast, more beautiful world. No less interesting and impressive were the daily features of human life around us. A hatchment over a lofty doorway, a splendid equipage with its attendant liveried servants bowling in or out of heavy, ornamental park gates, would marvellously allure my imagination. There was a breadth, fulness, perfectedness around us that strikingly contrasted with the restricted, common, prosaic surroundings of the Friends in Staffordshire. Surrey breathed to us beauty and poetry, London the majesty of history and civilisation. From the highest point of the Addington Hills we were shown St. Paul's in the distance. It sent a thrill through us. Even the visits sanctioned by our teachers to the confectioner's for the purchase of Chelsea buns and Parliament gingerbread enhanced our innocent enjoyment.

Our stay at Croydon was abruptly ended by the serious illness of our mother. After leaving us she had caught a severe cold during a dense fog in London, which brought on an illness that had lasted long ere danger was apprehended. Then we were sent for, but a favourable change had occurred before our arrival.

In the August of 1810 my sister was sent to a Friends' school held in high repute at Sheffield, but owing to an alarm of fever in the town was recalled in the depth of the winter. She then remained at home whilst mother took me to the same school the following spring. It was conducted by Hannah Kilham, the widow of Alexander Kilham, the founder of the New Methodist or Kilhamite Connection, her step-daughter Sarah, and a

niece named Corbett, all Friends by convincement.

Hannah Kilham, an ever-helpful benefactor to the poor, devoted herself to a life of active Christian charity. She treated me as one of the older girls-I was tall for twelve-and often took me with her in her rounds. Once she sent me alone to a woman whose destitute condition so awoke my compassion as to induce me to bestow on her my last sixpence, with the uttered hope, "May the Lord bless it!" This was followed by self-questionings whether by my speech I had meant that the Lord should bless the gift to the sufferer or to me-then penniless. Another time, at nightfall, Hannah Kilham made me wait in a desolate region of broken-up ground and half-built ruinous houses while she visited some haunt of squalor. It seems strange that a highly conscientious woman should leave a young girl alone, even for a few minutes, in a low, disreputable suburb of a large town. But she was on what she believed her Master's errand, and I doubt not had committed me to His keeping, for whilst I was appalled by the darkness and desolation around me, I saw the great comet of the autumn of 1811 majestically careering through the heavens, and received an impression of divine omnipotence which no school teaching could have given me.

Sheffield never affected me as Croydon had done. The only point of extraneous interest was the fact that the way to Meeting led through the Hart's Head and over the doorstep almost of the office of the Iris newspaper, making me hope, but in vain, to catch a glimpse of the editor, James Montgomery, whose poetry I greatly admired.

In 1812 I left this school, which was afterwards discontinued. The general peace came. The benevolent Alexander of Russia visited England, and, admiring the principles and usages of Friends, determined to employ members of the Society in his schemes for improving the internal condition of his empire. This led to Sarah Kilham accompanying the family of Daniel Wheeler, when in 1818 he emigrated, by invitation of the Czar, for the purpose of draining and cultivating land on the Neva. Her stepmother went a few years later as a missionary to the African state, Liberia, in the company of an austere Friend, Richard Smith, a man of substance, whose connections lived near Alton Towers, and who occasionally attended Uttoxeter meeting. He came over to our house to take leave before proceeding to Africa; but silence being the rule of his life,

he walked into the parlour, sat in stillness for twenty minutes, rose up, shook hands with each of us, and so departed without uttering a word. I do not know his ultimate fate. Hannah Kilham succumbed to the climate, returning home to die.

Father, dissatisfied with our attainments, arranged that we should complete our education at home, engaging the master of the only boys' school in the town to teach us Latin, the globes, and whatever else he could impart. He was a man of some learning, who in early life, when residing in London, had been brutally attacked in some lonely street or passage by a lawless band of ruffians, the Mohocks. His face still bore the marks of their violence, being scarred with deep wounds, as if made by daggers and knives. Death having deprived us of this teacher, a young man Friend of good birth and education was next employed to lead us into the higher branches of mathematics. He made himself, however, so objectionable to us by his personal attentions that we very soon refused his instructions. Although we never revealed the reason, father, perhaps surmising it, allowed us to have our own way, and, earnest students, we henceforth became our own educators.

We retained and perfected our rudimentary knowledge by instructing others. Father fitted up a schoolroom for us in the stable loft, where twice a week we were allowed to teach poor children. Our young sister and brother were entirely committed to our care. Emma, who, fragile as a snowdrop, nevertheless lived to grow up a remarkably bright, intelligent woman, a blessing to all who knew her; Charles, a handsome, high-spirited boy, whose good-humour, generosity, and irrepressible buoyancy made him a general favourite. In training these beloved charges we trained ourselves.

We had also the excellent discipline of daily domestic occupation. Our mother required us to be expert in all household matters, and we ourselves took a pride in the internal management being nicely ordered. Our home possessed a charm-a sense of repose which we felt but could not at the time define. It was caused by father's correct, purified taste that led him to select oak for the furniture, quiet colours and small patterns for the low rooms. The houses of our neighbours displayed painted woods, flaming colours, and large designs on the floors and walls.

I must here briefly mention a circumstance which produced on Anna and me an effect

similar to a first term at college on the mind of an ardent student. It was her visit with mother to relatives and friends in Wales; an effect which was as vivid and lasting on me as if I had accompanied them. It happened in the late summer of 1813. From Birmingham the journey to Bristol was made in a stage-coach, where, after being closely packed in the inside with mother's old friend, Evan Rees, two other Quakers, Thomas and Sarah Robinson, bound like themselves for Swansea, and a sixth passenger, they arrived, after a long day, at midnight. The intention had been to proceed immediately by packet, but owing to contrary winds, they were detained for three days in Bristol, mother, Anna, and Evan Rees being entertained the while under the hospitable roof of the Gilpins. Charles Gilpin, afterwards the well-known M.P., was then a little boy, just running alone in a white frock. Joseph Ford, an old Friend, who considered it his duty to act as cicerone to all strangers, members of the Society, visiting the ancient city, kindly conducted them to St. Mary's Redcliff, in memory of poor Chatterton, to the exchange, Clifton, very unlike the Clifton of to-day-down to St. Vincent's rocks and the banks of the Avon, where they picked up Bristol diamonds, which Anna brought home with her.

At length they went on board, but the wind remaining due west, instead of reaching their destination in twenty-four hours, they were tossed about for three whole days and nights. Notwithstanding the attendant fatigue and discomfort, Anna saw and enjoyed the rising and setting of the sun at sea, the gulls and other marine birds, the moonlit nights, the phosphoric light on the vessel's track-all new and wonderful sights to a girl from the midland counties.

At Swansea they parted from their three Quaker companions, and a life of liberty began for Anna. At our relatives', the Sylvesters, there was no longer any restraint in talk and laughter. Uncle was jovial, witty, clever in general conversation. Aunt, always well dressed, was affable, and set every one at ease. Charles, our frank, manly cousin of eighteen, and his young sister Mercy, were most cordial.

The first week was spent in receiving calls from mother's former acquaintance, and from those of Aunt, come out of compliment or curiosity to see the Quakeress. Then followed the return calls. It was a bright, free, gay existence, and my sister enjoyed it. The visit to mother's intimate friend, Anna Price, then a widow, living no longer