was dropped in the middle of its second "book." It was not idleness that
made him break off such plans, but just the reverse--a too great
activity of brain. His parents seem to have thought that there was no
harm in this apparently quiet reading and writing. They were extremely
energetic themselves, and hated idleness. They appear to have held a
theory that their little boy was safe so long as he was not obviously
excited; and to have thought that the proper way of giving children
pocket-money was to let them earn it. So they used to pay him for his
literary labours; "Homer" was one shilling a page; "Composition," one
penny for twenty lines; "Mineralogy," one penny an article.

The death of his aunt Jessie left a large family of boys and one girl to
the care of their widowed father, and the Ruskins felt it their duty to
help. They fetched Mary Richardson away, and brought her up as a sister
to their solitary son. She was not so beloved as Jessie had been, but a
good girl and a nice girl, four years older than John, and able to be a
companion to him in his lessons and travels. There was no sentimentality
about his attachment to her, but a steady fraternal relationship, he, of
course, being the little lord and master; but she was not without
spirit, which enabled her to hold her own, and perseverance, which
sometimes helped her to eclipse, for the moment, his brilliancy. They
learnt together, wrote their journals together, and shared alike with
the scrupulous fairness which Mrs. Ruskin's sensible nature felt called
on to show. And so she remained his sister, and not quite his sister,
until she married, and after a very short married life died.

Another accession to the family took place in the same year (1828); the
Croydon aunt, too, had died, and left a dear dog, Dash, a brown and
white spaniel, which at first refused to leave her coffin, but was
coaxed away, and found a happy home at Herne Hill, and frequent