Apr., 1890 . 
CONSTANCE C. W. NADEN. 
77 
thus recognises in the last lines of the dedicatory sonnet 
above referred to :— 
“ Ye who have watched me from my infant days 
With tenderest love and care, who treasure yet 
Quaint sayings, sketches rude, and childish lays; 
Accept this wreath, entwined in April hours : 
Yours was the garden where the seed was set, 
To you I dedicate the opening flowers.” 
The uneventful routine of home life was first broken by a 
little visit to her old friends and former governesses, the 
Misses Martin, who had removed to Clifton, and subsequently 
by an occasional trip to the sea-side. In the summer of 1881, 
in company with her friend, Miss Ellen Brown, she visited 
Belgium, went up the Rhine, and through Switzerland, 
returning home by way of Paris. Her fellow traveller thus 
writes to me :—“ I look back upon the long summer weeks 
spent in her sweet society as one of the brightest spots in an 
altogether happy period of my life.” In the spring of 1888 
she travelled for some months in Italy, in company with 
Miss Rock, and her letters graphically describe the beauties 
of the Riviera, Genoa, Rome, Venice, etc. 
For some years Miss Naden taught at the Home for 
Friendless Girls, an institution in which she took much 
interest. 
And now we are approaching the most important epoch in 
Miss Naden’s career. “ For a few years,” writes the same 
life-long friend, “ after leaving school, Miss Naden led a quiet 
secluded life, devoting herself to the systematic study , of 
languages, and mastering in turn French, German, Latin, and 
the elements of Greek. To this period belong the “ Songs and 
Sonnets of Springtime,” most of which were composed at odd 
moments, for Miss Naden believed with Goethe that ‘ nothing 
is so precious as time.’ ” 
Another writer in the “Mason College Magazine” states 
that the charming “Dedication” in the above-mentioned volume 
“ was composed while the poetess was occupied with the 
domestic mending basket! ” 
In the autumn of 1881 she entered as a student of the 
Mason College, to which noble institution she was indebted 
for a thoroughly sound scientific training. Of this “momen¬ 
tous event ” the life-long friend thus writes :—“ Not only did 
it open out to her immeasurably wider fields of knowledge, 
but it brought the hitherto solitary student into the midst of a 
bright, active little intellectual world, and gave her those 
companionships and interests which were a positive need of 
her essentially gregarious mind. In this congenial atmosphere 
