d pepper-and-salt cloth." He soon settled down in his new home, "a
very quiet little personage, very good-tempered, and very much in awe
of his aunt," with a fame among his cousins for his talent for making
paper boxes one within another. His bed was in an attic, next door to
his big cousin Marten's room. Marten had a shelf full of books, which
Henry used to carry off to his own domain and read over and over again.
From these books he first dated an intense love of reading which was
destined to be his chief stand-by in old age. We shall not wonder that
Mary loved to recall her early remembrances of this little school-boy
when we know that, several years later, he became her husband, with
whom she spent a long and happy married life.

Mary has other amusing recollections of this time of her early
girlhood, and tells them in her own charming way; but we must pass on
to her school life, which is bound to interest her readers of to-day,
so many of whom go to school. It was the summer of 1790. Mr. Butt had
been taking his turn of duty at the Chapel Royal, St. James's, being by
this time one of the chaplains to the King. On his way home he stopped
at Reading to visit his friend Dr. Valpy, in whose school Marten had
for a time been educated.

During this visit Dr. Valpy took him to see "a sort of exhibition" got
up by the "young ladies" of M. and Mme. de St. Quentin's school. This
famous school, which was afterwards removed to London, was held then in
the old Abbey at Reading. "This," thought Mr. Butt, "is the very place
for Mary"; and to the Abbey School it was decided that she should go.

Marten was now at Westminster School. When the time came for him to
return after the holidays, Mary had a seat in the chaise, and drove
with him and her father as far as Reading. You will be amused by her
description of her school and schoolmistresses, and of her first
introduction to them.

"The house--or, rather, the Abbey itself--was exceedingly interesting;
and though I know not its exact history, yet I knew every hole and
corner of what remained of the ancient building, which consisted of a
gateway with rooms above, and on each side of it a vast staircase, of
which the balustrades had originally been gilt. Then, too, there were
many little nooks and round closets, and many larger and smaller rooms
and passages, which appeared to be rather more modern; whilst the
gateway itself stood without the garden walls upon the Forbury or open