sword of Death cut that which pain and trouble never availed to
slacken in the slightest degree.] But it was urged upon her that the
advantages of education offered were such as no money could purchase for
me; that it would be a disadvantage for me to grow up in a houseful of
boys--and, in truth, I was as good a cricketer and climber as the best of
them--that my mother would soon be obliged to send me to school, unless
she accepted an offer which gave me every advantage of school without its
disadvantages. At last she yielded, and it was decided that Miss Marryat,
on returning home, should take me with her.

Miss Marryat--the favorite sister of Captain Marryat, the famous
novelist--was a maiden lady of large means. She had nursed her brother
through the illness that ended in his death, and had been living with her
mother at Wimbledon Park. On her mother's death she looked round for work
which would make her useful in the world, and finding that one of her
brothers had a large family of girls, she offered to take charge of one
of them, and to educate her thoroughly. Chancing to come to Harrow, my
good fortune threw me in her way, and she took a fancy to me and thought
she would like to teach two little girls rather than one. Hence her offer
to my mother.

Miss Marryat had a perfect genius for teaching, and took in it the
greatest delight. From time to time she added another child to our party,
sometimes a boy, sometimes a girl. At first, with Amy Marryat and myself,
there was a little boy, Walter Powys, son of a clergyman with a large
family, and him she trained for some years, and then sent him on to
school admirably prepared. She chose "her children"--as she loved to call
us--in very definite fashion. Each must be gently born and gently
trained, but in such position that the education freely given should be a
relief and aid to a slender parental purse. It was her delight to seek
out and aid those on whom poverty presses most heavily, when the need for
education for the children weighs on the proud and the poor. "Auntie" we
all called her, for she thought "Miss Marryat" seemed too cold and stiff.
She taught us everything herself except music, and for this she had a
master, practising us in composition, in recitation, in reading aloud
English and French, and later, German, devoting herself to training us in
the soundest, most thorough fashion. No words of mine can tell how much I
owe her, not only of knowledge, bit of th