exigencies of village school building in those days gone by, before
in every place


"It there behoved him to set up the standard of her Grace,"


the tale was actually printed for private sale, as a link between
translations of short stories.

This process only stifled the family in my imagination for a time.
They awoke once more with new names, but substantially the same, and
were my companions in many a solitary walk, the results of which were
scribbled down in leisure moments to be poured into my mother's ever
patient and sympathetic ears.

And then came the impulse to literature for young people given by the
example of that memorable book the Fairy Bower, and followed up by
Amy Herbert. It was felt that elder children needed something of a
deeper tone than the Edgeworthian style, yet less directly religious
than the Sherwood class of books; and on that wave of opinion, my
little craft floated out into the great sea of the public.

Friends, whose kindness astonished me, and fills me with gratitude
when I look back on it, gave me seasonable criticism and pruning, and
finally launched me. My heroes and heroines had arranged themselves
so as to work out a definite principle, and this was enough for us
all.

Children's books had not been supposed to require a plot. Miss