I am comforting myself with the hope that you are waging constant war against _self-will_ and _disobedience_. You can hardly believe how happy you will be when through God’s help upon your earnest endeavours, you can obey _at once_ and give up your own way. I send my darling child a text which I wish her to learn and pray for grace to live up to. It is 1 Peter v. 5. I wish you to learn it perfectly and make it part of your _daily_ prayers. Tell me when you write that you have done so. Bear it in mind all day long, and try hard, very hard, to live up to it. I often fancy you all at morning prayers and wish I could be there.[4] God gives you great privileges, dear child, that you may live to Him.” Footnote 4: She would probably not have elected to be there on the morning when some imp induced Sophy to tip over a bench on to the row of girls kneeling in front of her. All the letters are in this vein, and all were read by the recipient many times and carefully preserved. In June, 1849, she went with her parents, brother and sister to spend a long holiday in the Lake District, and one is glad to think of her as being much in the open air, collecting plants and stones, “shooting a good deal with bow and arrows,” riding on the coach, and being allowed to drive for a few minutes herself.[5] Footnote 5: She used to say that her intimate familiarity with the details of harnessing and all stable matters was due to the fact that when they were spending a holiday in the country her father allowed them to have a pony and trap on condition that, with the exception of actual grooming, the children managed it entirely themselves. Her holiday diary is as well written and as dull as that of the average adult, and one is almost startled when one comes upon such entries as “Played at horses and pretended I was driving the mail”; and again, “A very wet day. I had a very nice game with Papa and Carry, and another with Carry in the afternoon and afterwards another alone with Papa very nice indeed and I enjoyed it _very_ much.” On the other hand there was no lack of church-going, and the texts are always carefully noted down: “July 29th Sunday. Went to Keswick church in the morning and the text was James 4. 8. Brother went to church at Thornthwaite. Papa, Brother and Carry walked off to the Vale of St. John’s, but there was no sermon—only prayers. Went to Keswick church in the afternoon and the clergyman took his text from Ps. 119, 96.” “Aug. 5th. Mama was very ill and I stopped at home both in the morning and afternoon with her. Papa, Brother and Carry went to Brougham-hall to church but there was no service. They went again in the afternoon to Brougham-hall—no sermon. I went in the evening to Penrith church and the text was Luke 16. 8.” _She_ never seems to have drawn a blank, poor little soul! A previous entry is even more characteristic of the world she lived in: