e
day-school, and on Sunday held a Class for Young Women at the
Vicarage, because she was so often prevented by attacks of quinsy from
going out to school; indeed, at this time, as the mother of some of
her ex-pupils only lately remarked, "Miss Julie were always cayling."

[Footnote 6: Letter, August 19, 1864.]

[Illustration: SOUTH SCREEN, ECCLESFIELD CHURCH.]

The first stories that she published belong to this so-to-speak
"parochial" phase of her life, when her interests were chiefly divided
between the nursery and the village. "A Bit of Green" came out in the
_Monthly Packet_ in July 1861; "The Blackbird's Nest" in August
1861; "Melchior's Dream" in December 1861; and these three tales, with
two others, which had not been previously published ("Friedrich's
Ballad" and "The Viscount's Friend"), were issued in a volume called
"Melchior's Dream and other Tales," in 1862. The proceeds of the first
edition of this book gave "Madam Liberality" the opportunity of
indulging in her favourite virtue. She and her eldest sister, who
illustrated the stories, first devoted the "tenths" of their
respective earnings for letterpress and pictures to buying some
hangings for the sacrarium of Ecclesfield Church, and then Julie
treated two of her sisters, who were out of health, to Whitby for
change of air. Three years later, out of some other literary earnings,
she took her eldest brother to Antwerp and Holland, to see the city of
Rubens' pictures, and the land of canals, windmills, and fine
sunsets.[7] The expedition had to be conducted on principles which
savoured more of strict integrity and economy than of comfort; for
they went in a small steamer from Hull to Antwerp, but Julie feasted
her eyes and brain on all the fresh sights and sounds she encountered,
and filled her sketch-book with pictures.

[Footnote 7: Letters, September 1865.]

[Illustration: IN OWNING A GOOD TURN]

"It was at Rotterdam," wrote her brother, "that I left her with her
camp-stool and water-colours for a moment in the street, to find
her, on my return, with a huge crowd round her, and before--a baker's
man holding back a blue veil that would blow before her eyes--and she
sketching down an avenue of spectators, to whom she kept motioning
with her brush to stand aside. Perfectly unconscious she was of _how_
she looked, and I had great difficulty in getting her to pack up and
move on. Every quaint Dutch boat, every queer street, every peasant in
gold orn