ary shelves and the few new ones occasionally added were read and
re-read with a thoroughness rare among modern readers, surrounded by a
multiplicity of books old and new.

They were a large, young family, five boys and five girls, ranging from the
ages of three years old to eighteen in 1830, when her diaries begin, all
eager, high-spirited children, and exceptionally strong and healthy. In her
early diaries, describing day-long journeys in coaches, early starts and
late arrivals, she hardly ever mentions feeling tired, and she enjoyed the
old methods of travelling infinitely more than the railway journeys of
later days, about which she felt like the Frenchman who said: "On ne voyage
plus; on arrive." Long wild country walks in Scotland and mountain-climbing
in Switzerland were particularly delightful to her.

This stock of sound vitality stood her in good stead all her life; only
during those years which followed the birth of her eldest son does it seem
to have failed her. Her life was an exceptionally busy one, and her strong
feelings and sense of responsibility made even small domestic affairs
matters for close attention; yet in the diaries and letters of her later
life there are no entries which betray either the lassitude or the
restlessness of fatigue. She was not one of those busy women who only keep
pace with their interests by deputing home management to others. This power
of endurance in a deeply feeling nature is one of the first facts which any
one attempting to tell the story of her life must bring before the reader's
notice.

There was much reading aloud in the fireside circle at Minto, and for the
boys much riding and sport. Many hours were spent upon the heather or in
fishing the Teviot. Lady Fanny herself cared little for sport, or only for
its picturesque side. Near the house are the rocks known as Minto Crags,
mentioned by Sir Walter Scott in the "Lay of the Last Minstrel," where many
and many a time Lady Fanny raced about on hunting days, watching the
redcoats with childish eagerness--intensely interested in the joyousness
and beauty of the sight, but in her heart always secretly thankful if the
fox escaped. Fox-hunting on Minto Crags must indeed have been a picturesque
sight, and there was a special rock overhanging a precipice upon which she
loved to sit and watch the wild chase, men and horses appearing and
disappearing with flashing rapidity among the woods and ravines beneath.
The pleasures of