April 16, 1863. "Thank you so much for letting me bring home a
flower or two! I do love them so much."

As Julie emerged from the nursery and began to take an interest in our
village neighbours, her taste for "projects" was devoted to their
interests. It was her energy that established a Village Library in
1859, which still remains a flourishing institution; but all her
attempts were not crowned with equal success. She often recalled, with
great amusement, how, the first day on which she distributed tracts as
a District Visitor, an old lady of limited ideas and crabbed
disposition called in the evening to restore the tract which had been
lent to her, remarking that she had brought it back and required no
more, as--"My 'usband does _not_ attend the public-'ouse, and we've no
unrewly children!"

My sister gave a series of Lessons[6] on the Liturgy in the
day-school, and on Sunday held a Class for Young Women at the
Vicarage, because she was so often prevented by attacks of quinsy from
going out to school; indeed, at this time, as the mother of some of
her ex-pupils only lately remarked, "Miss Julie were always cayling."

[Footnote 6: Letter, August 19, 1864.]

[Illustration: SOUTH SCREEN, ECCLESFIELD CHURCH.]

The first stories that she published belong to this so-to-speak
"parochial" phase of her life, when her interests were chiefly divided
between the nursery and the village. "A Bit of Green" came out in the
_Monthly Packet_ in July 1861; "The Blackbird's Nest" in August