nt in this name. Elizabeth
Knodle was the elder sister of Esther Van de Grift.]

In reality, Fanny, with her clear olive skin, her bright black eyes,
her perfectly regular features, and mass of half-curling dark hair,
was the prettiest in the family; but the dictates of fashion are
imperious, so her mother put lotions on her face and her grandmother
washed it with strong soap, saying: "She is that color by nature--God
made her ugly." The little girl asked rather pathetically if they
would not change her name to Lily, to which her mother replied: "You
are a little tiger lily!" In after years in her many gardens in
different parts of the world there were always tiger lilies growing.
She was a high-spirited, daring creature, a little flashing firefly of
a child, eagerly seeking for adventure, that might have brought upon
her frequent punishment were it not that her parents held exceedingly
liberal views in such matters. About this she says:

"Henry Ward Beecher and my father were great friends, and used to
discuss very earnestly the proper method of bringing up children. At
that time it was the custom to be extremely severe with youth, and
such axioms as 'spare the rod and spoil the child,' 'to be seen and
not heard,' were popular; so that the views held by Mr. Beecher and my
father were decidedly modern. They argued that if a child was bad by
nature it would grow up bad, and that if it was good it would grow up
good, and that it was best not to interfere with the development of
children's characters, but to allow them to have their own way."

As Esther Van de Grift limited her corrections of her children to an
occasional mild remonstrance, they worked out their own
individualities with little interference. Fanny was what the children
called a "tomboy," and always preferred the boys' sports, the more
daring the better. She roamed the woods with her cousin Tom Van de
Grift, and the two kindred wild spirits climbed trees, forded streams
up to their necks, did everything, in fact, that the most adventurous
boy could think of. School was a secondary affair then, and, except
for drawing and painting, in which she was thought to have a
remarkable talent, Fanny paid little attention to her studies.

When she was a little girl she was caught in the wave of a great
temperance revival which was sweeping over the country, and, in her
enthusiasm to aid in the work, she produced two drawings that caused a
sensation. O