natural instinct both to lead
and to protect, it would be idle to discuss. It is always difficult for
people who believe in the all-importance of the present to judge of
others, whose firm creed is that the present is nothing as compared to
the future. Chief among this remarkable family was Elizabeth Gurney,
the wife of Josiah Fry, the mother of many children, and the good angel,
indeed, of the unhappy captives of those barbarous days, prisoners, to
whose utter gloom and misery she brought some rays of hope. There are
few figures more striking than that of the noble Quaker lady starting on
her generous mission, comforting the children, easing the chains of the
captives. No domineering Jellyby, but a motherly, deep-hearted woman;
shy, and yet from her very timidity gaining an influence, which less
sensitive natures often fail to win. One likes to imagine the dignified
sweet face coming in--the comforting Friend in the quiet garb of the
Quaker woman standing at the gates of those terrible places, bidding the
despairing prisoners be of good hope.

Elizabeth Fry's whole life was a mission of love and help to others; her
brothers and her many relations heartily joined and assisted her in many
plans and efforts.

For Joseph John Gurney, the head of the Norwich family, Mrs. Opie is
said to have had a feeling amounting to more than friendship. Be this as
it may, it is no wonder that so warm-hearted and impressionable a woman
should have been influenced by the calm goodness of the friends with
whom she was now thrown. It is evident enough, nor does she attempt to
conceal the fact, that the admiration and interest she feels for John
Joseph Gurney are very deep motive powers. There comes a time in most
lives, especially in the lives of women, when all the habits and
certainties of youth have passed away, when life has to be built up
again upon the foundations indeed of the past, the friendships, the
memories, the habits of early life, but with new places and things to
absorb and to interest, new hearts to love. And one day people wake up
to find that the friends of their choice have become their home. People
are stranded perhaps seeking their share in life's allowance, and
suddenly they come upon something, with all the charm which belongs to
deliberate choice, as well as that of natural affinity. How well one
can realise the extraordinary comfort that Amelia Opie must have found
in the kind friends and neighbours with whom she