BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. XI 



of great length and breadth, yet of so fine a texture that the 

 • whole width of one could be drawn through a lady's finger- 

 ring. My mother had also made the old chest a receptacle 

 for extra stores of house-linen, and underneath all she had 

 deposited many reams of paper, blotting-paper, and dozens of 

 ready-cut quill pens which had been sent to our father on the 

 death of his brother, who had been a clerk in the Bank of 

 England. Here was treasure trove. We pounced on the 

 paper and pens — their being cut adding much to their value — 

 and from some cakes of Indian ink we contrived to manu- 

 facture respectable writing fluid. Among the old books in 

 the library there was a fine atlas in two quarto volumes, full 

 of maps and abounding in the most interesting geographical 

 histories of the European countries, legends, the truth of 

 which we never questioned, and flourishing descriptions that 

 just suited our romantic ideas of places we had never seen but 

 had no difficulty in picturing to ourselves. I chose the period 

 of my herq William Tell, intending to write an interesting 

 love tale ; but I soon got my hero and heroine into an inextri- 

 cable muddle, so fell out of love adventures altogether, and 

 altering my plan ended by writing a juvenile tale, which I 

 brought to a more satisfactory conclusion. Every day we 

 wrote a portion, and at night read it aloud to Sara. She 

 took a lively interest in our stories and gave us her opinion 

 and advice, of which we took advantage to improve them 

 the following day. Not feeling quite sure of our mother's 

 approval, we kept our manuscripts carefully concealed after her 

 return, but we were in even greater dread of our eldest sister, 

 knowing that she would lecture us on the waste of time. 



" One morning I was sitting on the step inside our dressing- 

 room door, reading the last pages of my story to Sara, when 

 the door behind me opened and a small white hand was quietly 

 placed on mine and the papers extracted. I looked at Sara 

 in dismay. Not a word had been spoken, but I knew my 

 mother's hand, and the dread of Eliza's criticism became an 



