“That was my only opportunity of making acquaintance with the mighty ocean in its winter sublimity of tempest and storm; and partly perhaps from the striking and awful nature of the impression [upon the mind of] a lonely, musing, visionary child, the recollection remains indelibly fixed in my memory, fresh and vivid as if of yesterday.... “Once my father took me from my bed at midnight that I might see, from the highest storey of our house, the grandeur and the glory of the tempest; the spray rising to the very tops of the cliffs, pale and ghastly in the lightning, and hear the roar of the sea, the moaning of the wind, the roll of the thunder, and amongst them all the fearful sound of the minute guns, telling of death and danger on that iron-bound coast. Then in the morning I have seen the cold bright wintry sun shining gaily on the dancing sea, still stirred by the last breath of the tempest, and on the floating spars and parted timbers of the wreck.... [Illustration: THE PANELLED CHAMBER] “My walks,” she writes, “were confined to rambles on the shore with my maid, or still more to my delight with my dear father, the recollection of whose fond indulgence is connected with every pleasure of my childhood.... Sometimes we would go towards Charmouth, with its sweeping bay, passing below church and churchyard, perched high above us, and already undermined by the tide. Another time we bent our steps to the Pinny cliffs [that stretch away] on the western side of the harbour; the beautiful Pinny cliffs, where an old landslip had deposited a farm-house, with its outbuildings, its garden and its orchard, tossed half-way down amongst the rocks, its look of home and of comfort contrasting so strangely with the dark rugged masses above, below and around. “My father, a dabbler in science, with his hammer and basket was engaged in breaking off fragments of rock, to search for curious spars and fossil remains; I in picking up shells and sea-weed.... What enjoyment it was to feel the pleasant sea-breeze, and see the sun dancing on the waters, and wander as free as the sea-bird over my head beneath those beetling cliffs! Now for a moment losing sight of the dear papa, and now rejoining him with some delicate shell, or brightly coloured sea-weed, or imperfect _coruna ammoris_, enquiring into the success of his graver labours, and comparing our discoveries and treasures.