Brasenose College were frequent visitors at the
Vice-Chancellor's Lodgings, and the old friends, Dr. Kynaston and Mr.
Bazely, were constant as ever. They joined the girls in their walks, and
paid frequent visits to the schoolroom, where the younger ones would
hide their caps to prevent them from leaving.

Bessie used to delight in these visits, and looked back upon them as the
very sunshine of life at Oxford. Her poetry and music gained her much
sympathy. At this time, when she was about fourteen, she wrote a poem on
the violet which was much praised. At fifteen her intellectual activity
was the most remarkable point in her character, whilst at the same time
there was an equally remarkable absence of that rebellion against
authority which marks an epoch in so many young lives. Boys and girls of
that age begin to fret against the restrictions of childhood and youth;
they endeavour to cast aside laws and restraints; they are eager to
"live their own life" and to enjoy a freedom which they are all unfit to
use. Bessie knew nothing of this, or rather, she knew it in a very
modified, even attenuated form. The one extravagant desire which marked
her adolescence, was to be allowed the privilege of pouring out tea!

It was urged in vain that she would not know if cups were full or half
full, that she could not give to each one what they wanted of tea or
water, milk or sugar. Her reply was always the same, she would know by
the weight. The decision of the parents, however, went against her, and
she had her one small grievance. She did not "take turns" in making tea.

In the summer of 1841 Bessie, with a sister of nearly her own age, and
one of the little ones, went on a long visit to Culham. They took the
harp with them and practised diligently. They read history together.
Bessie gave daily lessons to her young sister, reading with her Scott's
_Tales of a Grandfather_, and teaching the child to love them as she
herself did. Whenever she had charge of a younger sister, poetry entered
largely into her scheme of education, and the "little sister" still
remembers the Scott, Wordsworth, and Mrs. Hemans, "Hymns for Childhood"
which she learnt at this time.

Bessie loved romantic ballads and stories. She was more imaginative than
any of "the others;" and "the others" thought that the loss of sight
acted upon her like the want of a drag upon a wheel, when the coach goes
down hill. During this visit Bessie had such a constant craving