Mary Fairfax was probably about fifteen when one day a friend showed her a monthly magazine containing coloured pictures of ladies’ dresses and puzzles. She was surprised to see strange lines mixed up with letters in the puzzles in a way that she could not understand, and asked her friend what they were. She was told that they were a kind of arithmetic called algebra, but her friend could not tell her what algebra was. On going home she looked amongst the family books to see if there was one which would explain algebra. She could only find one about navigation, which she studied, though she could but dimly understand it. She had no one of whom she could ask questions, and knew that she would only be laughed at if she spoke of her desire for knowledge, so that she often felt sad and forlorn. But she managed to teach herself enough Greek to read Xenophon and Herodotus. The next winter she spent in Edinburgh again and was sent to a drawing school, and got on well with drawing; but it was not till the following summer, when her youngest brother was studying with a tutor, that she ventured to ask the tutor to get her books about algebra and Euclid, and she was able to begin the studies which were to make her famous as a mathematician. She worked very hard, for she had many household duties to perform, and to spend much time on music and painting, which were the only studies of which her mother approved. She could only study mathematics by sitting up late at night, and burnt so many candles that the servants complained to her mother, and her candle was ordered to be taken away when she went to bed. Then she used to keep up her studies by going over in the dark what she had already learnt. By this time Mary was grown up, and was a remarkably pretty girl, very small and delicate-looking. She began to go out to parties in Edinburgh, which she much enjoyed, and where she was much admired; but all the time she never lost sight of what she felt to be the main object of her life, the pursuit of her studies. She painted at the art school, she practised her piano for five hours every day, she made all her own dresses, even her ball dresses, she spent her evenings working and talking with her mother. To get time for her other studies, she used to rise at daybreak, and, after dressing, wrapt herself in a blanket to keep warm, and read algebra or classics till breakfast time. So amidst difficulties of all kinds she struggled on with her studies; no one, except her uncle Dr. Somerville, ever gave her any help or encouragement.