laces, toys, cakes, and
sweetmeats! While the doctor was gone to buy his horse, his kind
lady let me stand as long as I pleased at the booths, and gave me
many things which she saw I particularly admired. My needle-case, my
pin-cushion, indeed my work-basket, and all its contents, are presents
which she purchased for me at this fair. After we returned home, she
played with me all the evening at a geographical game, which she also
bought for me at this cheerful fair.

The next day she invited some young ladies of my own age, to spend the
day with me. She had a swing put up in the garden for us, and a room
cleared of the furniture that we might play at blindman's-buff. One of
the liveliest of the girls, who had taken on herself the direction of
our sports, she kept to be my companion all the time I staid with her,
and every day contrived some new amusement for us.

Yet this good lady did not suffer all my time to pass in mirth and
gaiety. Before I went home, she explained to me very seriously the
error into which I had fallen. I found that so far from "Mahometism
Explained" being a book concealed only in this library, it was well
known to every person of the least information.

The Turks, she told me, were Mahometans, and that, if the leaves of
my favourite book had not been torn out, I should have read that the
author of it did not mean to give the fabulous stories here related as
true, but only wrote it as giving a history of what the Turks, who are
a very ignorant people, believe concerning the impostor Mahomet, who
feigned himself to be a descendant of Ishmael. By the good offices of
the physician and his lady, I was carried home at the end of a month,
perfectly cured of the error into which I had fallen, and very much
ashamed of having believed so many absurdities.

VI

EMILY BARTON

(_By Mary Lamb_)

When I was a very young child, I remember residing with an uncle
and aunt who lived in ----shire. I think I remained there near a
twelvemonth. I am ignorant of the cause of my being so long left there
by my parents, who, though they were remarkably fond of me, never came
to see me during all that time. As I did not know I should ever have
occasion to relate the occurrences of my life, I never thought of
enquiring the reason.

I am just able to recollect, that when I first went there, I thought
it was a fine thing to live in the country, and play with my little
cousins in the garden all day long; and