her
memories of Pipe Grange were of walks with her brother and nurse in
green lanes; of lovely commons and old farmhouses, with walls covered
with ivy and yew-trees cut in grotesque forms; of "feeding some little
birds in a hedge, and coming one day and finding the nest and birds
gone, which was a great grief to me."

Soon afterwards the nursery party at Stanford was increased by two
little cousins, Henry and Margaret Sherwood. They had lost their
mother, and were sent to be for a time under the care of their aunt,
Mrs. Butt. They joined in the romps of Marten and Mary, and very lively
romps they seem to have been. Mary describes how her brother used to
put her in a drawer and kick it down the nursery stairs; how he heaped
chairs and tables one on the other, set her at the top of them, and
then threw them all down; how he put a bridle round her neck and drove
her about with a whip. "But," she says, "being a very hardy child, and
not easily hurt, I suppose I had myself to blame for some of his
excesses; for with all this he was the kindest of brothers to me, and I
loved him very, very much."

When Mary was six years old she began to make stories, but she tells us
she had not the least recollection of what they were about. She was not
yet able to write, so whenever she had thought out a story, she had to
follow her mother about with a slate and pencil and get her to write at
her dictation. The talk Mary and Marten heard while sitting at meals
with their parents was clever and interesting. Many visitors came to
the house, and after a while there were several young men living there,
pupils of Mr. Butt, so that there was often a large party. The two
little children were never allowed to interrupt, but had to sit and
listen, "whether willing or not"; and in this way the shrewd and
observant Mary picked up endless scraps of knowledge while still very
young. She tells us a good deal about her education in these early
days. "It was the fashion then for children to wear iron collars round
the neck, with a backboard strapped over the shoulders; to one of these
I was subjected from my sixth to my thirteenth year. It was put on in
the morning, and seldom taken off till late in the evening, and I
generally did all my lessons standing in stocks, with this stiff collar
round my neck. At the same time I had the plainest possible food, such
as dry bread and cold milk. I never sat on a chair in my mother's
presence. Yet I was a very ha