marriage,
during the preceding year, but nothing had then been settled, Elizabeth
Gurney being afraid that any change at that time might interfere with
her spiritual welfare and her newly-formed plans of active usefulness.
But after some correspondence, when the proposal was renewed, she felt
it right to give her consent. It was the custom more generally
prevailing than now for the junior partner to reside in the house of
business, and in accordance with this, Joseph and Elizabeth Fry prepared
to establish themselves in Mildred's Court in the City, a large,
commodious and quiet house, since pulled down in consequence of
alterations in London. The parents of her husband occupied a
country-house at Plashet, Essex. The Fry family, like that of the
Gurneys, had long been members of the Society of Friends; but unlike her
own parents, they had adhered strictly to the tenets and the habits of
Quakers. She thus came to be surrounded by a large circle of new
connexions, different from her own early associates at Norwich.

During the fortnight occupied by the Yearly Meeting, Mildred's Court
was an open house for the entertainment of Friends from all parts of the
kingdom, who would come in to midday dinner, whether formally invited or
not. On one occasion, when an American Friend, George Dilwyn, was a
guest, she commenced regular family worship, with the approval of her
husband, this now recognised duty not having been previously the
practice in the house.

Occasionally she got rest in staying at Plashet, but her life was a busy
one, and hardly favourable to spiritual advancement. At Plashet, on the
9th of seventh month (July) she wrote: "We live at home in a continual
bustle; engagement follows engagement so rapidly, day after day, week
after week, owing principally to the number of near connexions, that we
appear to live for others rather than ourselves. Our plan of sleeping
out so often I by no means like, and yet it appears impossible to
prevent it; to spend one's life in visiting and being visited
seems sad."

It is evident that the circumstances under which she began her married
life were too fatiguing for her, and to these were added the usual
domestic troubles at times with servants. All this told upon her, then
approaching her first confinement, depressing not merely her bodily
powers and natural energy, but in some degree her spiritual liveliness.
But she must attend to present duty, and when her first child, a girl,