“providing and furnishing a habitation (which happened to be in the same house where my parents lived), which they did in as handsome a manner as their straitened income would allow, and to which my dear brothers took delight in contributing to the best of their ability. I remember how delighted I was when they were showing me the pretty framed pictures with which my brother William had decorated his sister’s room, and heard my mother relate afterwards, that the brothers had taken two months’ pay in advance for the wedding entertainment.... Though for stocking a family with household linen my mother was prepared at all times, as perhaps never a more diligent spinner was heard of; but to keep pace with the wishes of my dear brothers, by whom my sister was, as well as by her parents, exceedingly beloved—the whole family were kept for a time in an agreeable bustle to see that nothing that could give either pleasure or comfort might be wanting in her future establishment.... The fête (without which it would have been scandalous in those days to get married) ended with a ball, at which I remember to have been dancing among the rest without a partner.” [Sidenote: 1753-1755. _Early Recollections._] A little later, when war troubles broke up the household, and the bride returned to her mother, we are told: “my sister was not of a very patient temper, and could not be reconciled to have children about her, and I was mostly, when not in school, sent with Alexander to play on the walls or with the neighbour’s children, in which I seldom could join, and often stood freezing on shore to see my brother skating on the Stadtgraben (town ditch) till he chose to go home. In short, there was no one who cared anything about me.” The earthquake which destroyed Lisbon on the 1st November 1755, was strongly felt at Hanover, and became closely associated in the poor little girl’s mind with the trials and troubles which shortly afterwards fell upon the family. She says:— “One morning early I was with my father and mother alone in the room, the latter putting my clothes on, when all at once I saw both standing aghast and speechless before me; at the same time my brothers, my sister, and Griesbach came running in, all being panic-struck by the earthquake.” For a little while the family enjoyed a peaceful interval, during which the extraordinary proficiency of his two eldest sons was a growing source of delight to the father, whose utmost ambition was to see them become accomplished musicians; while the wider flights of William met with his most cordial sympathy. The following passage is one of the very few which reflect the brighter side of the picture:—