2. S. J.-B. has left behind her (as probably no woman of equal power has done) the record of this quest. She was a born chronicler: almost in her babyhood she struggled laboriously to get on to paper her doings and dreams; and she was truthful to a fault. We have here the kind of thing that is constantly “idealised” in present day fiction,—have it in actual contemporary record,—with the added interest that here the story begins in an old-world conservative medium, and passes through the life of the modern educated working girl into the history of a great movement, of which the chronicler was indeed _magna pars_. The reader will see how more and more as the years went on S. J.-B.’s motto became “Not me, but us,” till one is tempted to say that she _was_ the movement, that she stood, as it were, for women. 3. That, so to speak, was her “job”; but she never grew one-sided; never forgot the man’s point of view. No woman ever took a saner and wider view of human affairs. 4. In spite of the heavy strain thrown by conflicting outlook and ideals on the relation between parents and child, the reader will see in the following pages how that relationship was preserved. This is perhaps the most remarkable thing in the whole history, and it is full of significance and helpful suggestion for us all in these critical days. 5. And lastly, it proved impossible to write the life in any other way. When S. J.-B. was a young woman, Samuel Laurence was asked by her parents to make a crayon drawing of her. After some hours’ work, he threw down his pencil. “I must get you in oils or not at all,” he said. Those words have often been in the mind of the author of this book. CONTENTS _PART I_ CHAPTER I PAGE CHILDHOOD 1 Birth, parentage and descent—Early influences— “Sweet Sackermena.” CHAPTER II SCHOOL LIFE 11 A “terrible pickle”—Home letters—Holidays—“Poems”— A confession. CHAPTER III SCHOOL LIFE—_Continued_ 24 Indifferent health—Various educational experiments—S. J.-B.’s character as seen by her schoolfellows. CHAPTER IV SCHOOL LIFE—_Concluded_ 35 Leaves school abruptly—Fresh start—Illness of her mother and sister—Letter from her father— Confirmation. CHAPTER V LIFE AT HOME 50 Friendship with her mother—Dreams of authorship— Self-centred life—Makes acquaintance of Norfolk cousins.