as my father teaching me
the alphabet from the letters on a tombstone that stood at the head of
my mother's grave. I used to tap at my father's study-door; I think I
now hear him say, "Who is there?--What do you want, little girl?" "Go
and see mamma. Go and learn pretty letters." Many times in the day
would my father lay aside his books and his papers to lead me to this
spot, and make me point to the letters, and then set me to spell
syllables and words: in this manner, the epitaph on my mother's tomb
being my primmer and my spelling-book, I learned to read.

I was one day sitting on a step placed across the church-yard stile,
when a gentleman passing by, heard me distinctly repeat the letters
which formed my mother's name, and then say, _Elizabeth Villiers_,
with a firm tone, as if I had performed some great matter. This
gentleman was my uncle James, my mother's brother: he was a lieutenant
in the navy, and had left England a few weeks after the marriage of
my father and mother, and now, returned home from a long sea-voyage,
he was coming to visit my mother; no tidings of her decease having
reached him, though she had been dead more than a twelvemonth.

When my uncle saw me sitting on the stile, and heard me pronounce my
mother's name, he looked earnestly in my face, and began to fancy a
resemblance to his sister, and to think I might be her child. I was
too intent on my employment to observe him, and went spelling on. "Who
has taught you to spell so prettily, my little maid?" said my uncle.
"Mamma," I replied; for I had an idea that the words on the tombstone
were somehow a part of mamma, and that she had taught me. "And who is
mamma?" asked my uncle. "Elizabeth Villiers," I replied; and then my
uncle called me his dear little niece, and said he would go with me to
mamma: he took hold of my hand, intending to lead me home, delighted
that he had found out who I was, because he imagined it would be such
a pleasant surprise to his sister to see her little daughter bringing
home her long lost sailor uncle.

I agreed to take him to mamma, but we had a dispute about the way
thither. My uncle was for going along the road which led directly up
to our house; I pointed to the church-yard, and said, that was the way
to mamma. Though impatient of any delay, he was not willing to contest
the point with his new relation, therefore he lifted me over the
stile, and was then going to take me along the path to a gate he knew
was at