Now Mrs. Fairfax was very much afraid of thunder and lightning, and when she thought a storm was coming on, she used to prepare by taking out the steel pins which fastened on her cap, in case they might attract the lightning. Then she sat on a sofa at some distance from the fireplace, and read aloud descriptions of storms in the Bible, which frightened her little daughter Mary more than the storm itself. The large dog Hero, too, seems to have shared in the general fear of thunder, for, at the first clap, he would rush howling indoors and place his head on Mary's knee. Thus, with shutters closed, they awaited the utter destruction they expected, but which never came. When Mary was seven, her mother made her useful at shelling peas and beans, feeding the cocks and hens, and looking after the dairy. Once she had put some green gooseberries into some bottles, and taken them to the kitchen, telling the cook to boil the bottles uncorked, and when the fruit was enough cooked, to cork and tie them up. In a short time the whole house was alarmed by loud screams from the kitchen. It was found they proceeded from the cook, who had disobeyed orders, and corked the bottles before boiling, so of course they exploded. This accident interested Mary very much, and in after years she turned it to account in her reading of science. She was devoted to birds, and would watch the swallows collecting in hundreds on the house roofs to prepare for their winter flight. She always fed the robins on snowy mornings, and taught them to hop in and pick up the crumbs on the table. All through her life this love of birds continued; and, when she was quite old, and her little mountain sparrow died, having been her constant companion for eight years, she felt its death very much. When she was between eight and nine, her father came back from sea, and was quite shocked to find his little daughter still a wild, untrained child, unable to write, and only reading very badly, with a strong Scotch accent. So, after breakfast every morning, he made her read a chapter from the Bible and a paper from the "Spectator." But she was always glad when this penance was over, and she could run off with her father into the garden, and take a lesson in laying carnations and pruning fruit trees. At last one day her father said: "This kind of life will never do; Mary must at least know how to write and keep accounts."