thoughts _not_ too deep for tears. The books which exercised most
power over her at this period were Shakspeare, Cervantes, and
Moliere--all three students of the 'natural history of man,' and
inspired by fact, not fancy; reconstructing the world from materials
which they collected on every side, not spinning from the desires of
their own special natures; and accordingly teaching her, their
open-eyed disciple, to distrust all invention which is not based on a
wide experience, but, as she confesses, also doing her harm, since the
child, fed with meat instead of milk, becomes too soon mature. For a
few months, this bookish life was interrupted, or varied, by the
presence of an English lady, whom Margaret invested with ideal
perfections as her 'first friend,' and whom she worshipped as a star
from the east--a morning-star; and at whose departure she fell into a
profound depression. Her father sought to dispel this rooted
melancholy, by sending her to school--a destiny from which her whole
nature revolted, as something alien to its innermost being and
cherished associations. To school, however, she went, and at first
captivated, and then scandalised her fellow-pupils by her strange
ways. Now, she surprised them by her physical faculty of rivalling the
spinning dervishes of the East--now, by declaiming verses, and acting
a whole _repertoire_ of parts, both laughter-raising and
tear-compelling--now, by waking in the night, and cheating her
restlessness by inventions that alternately diverted and teased her
companions. She was always devising means to infringe upon the
school-room routine. This involved her at last in a trouble, from
which she was only extricated by the judicious tenderness of her
teacher--the circumstances attending which 'crisis' are detailed at
length in her story of 'Mariana.'

Her personal appearance at this time, and for some following years, is
described by one of her friends as being that of a blooming girl of a
florid complexion and vigorous health, with a tendency to robustness,
which she unwisely endeavoured to suppress or conceal at the price of
much future suffering. With no pretensions to beauty then, or at any
time, her face was one that attracted, but baffled physiognomical art.
'She escaped the reproach of positive plainness, by her blond and
abundant hair, by her excellent teeth, by her sparkling, busy eyes,
which, though usually half-closed from near-sightedness, shot piercing
glances at th