a name for herself with her numerous child-correspondents.

The ordinary work of editorship was heavily increased by her kindness to
tyro authors, and to children in want of everything, from advice on a
life-vocation to old foreign postage stamps. No consideration of the
value of her own time could induce her to deal summarily with what one
may call her magazine children, and her correspondents were of all ages
and acquirements, from nursery aspirants barely beyond pothooks to such
writers as the author of _A Family Man for Six Days_, and other charming
Australian reminiscences, who still calls her his "literary godmother."

The peculiar relation in which she stood to so many of the readers of
_Aunt Judy_ has been urged upon me as a reason for telling them
something more about her than that she is dead and gone, especially as
by her peremptory wish no larger record of her life will ever be made
public. I need hardly disclaim any thought of expressing an opinion on
her natural powers, or the value of those labours from which she rests;
but whatever of good there was in them she devoted with real
affectionate interest to the service of a much larger circle of children
than of those who now stand desolate before her empty chair. And those
whom she has so long taught have, perhaps, some claim upon the lessons
of her good example.

Most well-loved pursuits, perhaps most good habits of our lives, owe
their origin to our being stirred at one time or another to the
imitation of some one better, or better gifted than ourselves. We can
remember dates at which we began to copy what our present friends may
fancy to be innate peculiarities of our own character. The conviction of
this truth, and of the strong influence which little details of lives
we admire have in forming our characters in childhood, persuade me to
the hard task of writing at all of my dear mother, and guide me in
choosing those of the things that we remember about her which may help
her magazine children on matters about which they have oftenest asked
her counsel.

Many of her own innumerable hobbies had such origins, I know. The
influence of German literature on some of her writings is very obvious,
and this most favourite study sprang chiefly from a very early fit of
hero-worship for Elizabeth Smith, whose precocious and unusual
acquirements she was stirred to emulate, and whose enthusiasm for
Klopstock she caught. The fly-leaf of her copy of the Smith _Rema