itement of which had held her spellbound many a long summer afternoon;
and finally from one street to another, each the scene of well-remembered
rambles and adventures. Time can soften sharp and rugged lines and
lighten deep shadows, and the pleasant reminiscences of Barking days made
her overlook bitterer memories.

That there were many of the latter, cannot be doubted. Only too often the
victim of her father's cruel fury, and at all times a sufferer because of
her mother's theories, she had little chance for happiness during her
childhood. She was, like Carlyle's hero of "Sartor Resartus," one of
those children whose sad fate it is to weep "in the playtime of the
others." Not even to the David Copperfields and Paul Dombeys of fiction
has there fallen a lot so hard to bear and so sad to record, as that of
the little Mary Wollstonecraft. She was then the most deserving object of
that pity which later, as a woman, she was always ready to bestow upon
others. Her affections were unusually warm and deep, but they could find
no outlet. She met, on the one hand, indifference and sternness; on the
other, injustice and ill-usage. It is when reading the story of her
after-life, and learning from it how, despite her masculine intellect,
she possessed a heart truly feminine, that we fully appreciate the
barrenness of her early years. She was one of those who, to use her own
words, "cannot live without loving, as poets love." At the strongest
period of her strong womanhood she felt, as she so touchingly confesses
in her appeals to Imlay, the need of some one to lean upon,--some one to
give her the love and sympathy, which were to her what light and heat are
to flowers. It can therefore easily be imagined how much greater was the
necessity, and consequently the craving caused by its non-gratification,
when she was nothing but a child. Overflowing with tenderness, she dared
not lavish it on the mother who should have been so ready to receive it.
Instead of the confidence which should exist between mother and daughter,
there was in their case nothing but cold formality. Nor was there for her
much compensation in the occasional caresses of her father. Sensitive to
a fault, she could not forgive his blows and unkindness so quickly as to
be able to enjoy his smiles and favors. Moreover, she had little chance
of finding, without, the devotion and gentle care which were denied to
her within her own family. Mr. Wollstonecraft remained so shor