She was very far from spending her young life only in sitting on a form, learning lessons by rote. “Children,” says Mr. Ruskin, “should have times of being off duty, like soldiers;” or, as Dr. Abbott puts the same truth very clearly, “Children should have time to think their own thoughts.” These privileges certainly did belong to the children of the past, and, like many another clever child, the little Fanny made full use of her liberty, for she continues— “As soon as I could begin to read I revelled in books, and especially fairy tales. I devoured every fairy tale that was to be had. In those days the books available for children were ‘The Pilgrim’s Progress,’ ‘Miss Edgeworth’s Tales,’ ‘The Arabian Nights,’ and the old nursery stories. Of these I had single copies, which I managed to buy out of the money given to me. I had, in addition, translations of the Countess D’Aulnoy’s tales. As my father had a very fair library for the date, and as I had access to all his books, I had a wide course of reading. I knew Milton’s introduction to ‘The History of England,’ with the legends of Bladud, Lear, etc.; ‘Hume’s History,’ in every part, except the political, which I invariably skipped; the novels of the eighteenth century—‘Tom Jones,’ ‘Pamela,’ ‘The Man of Feeling,’ ‘Joseph Andrews,’ ‘Peregrine Pickle,’ etc. ‘Pamela’ was in four large volumes, the first of which I could never get because my mother hid it. At about ten years of age I became acquainted with Scott’s novels, and knew all the stories by heart, except ‘Rob Roy,’ for which I did not care. My father had the ‘Abbotsford Edition,’ with the poems, in twelve volumes. I never, however, read the poetry. In consequence of my father being engaged to illustrate books for Charles Knight, and for Bentley and Colburn, the publishers, I used to have the opportunity of reading the proofs, by going down, at six o’clock on summer mornings, to his room before any one was there. I remember my chief difficulty, however, with the proofs was paging them correctly; this I never learned to do, and therefore I read the pages as they came, fitting them into my mind properly afterwards. In that way I read Mrs. Trollope’s ‘Widow Married,’ Marryat’s ‘Peter Simple,’ etc.... During this early period of my life I must have become acquainted with the contents of about forty volumes of plays, published by Cumberland. There were also many volumes of plays of the previous century, which I knew almost by heart. Amongst these were volumes of Peruvian, Persian, and Turkish tales, belonging to a young aunt, my mother’s sister, who lent them to me. In these tales there was no attempt at connection, every person introduced merely telling his or her own story.