Introduction

The History of Lucy, Emily, and Henry Fairchild was begun in 1818, nearly a century ago. The two little misses and their brother played and did lessons, were naughty and good, happy and sorrowful, when George III. was still on the throne; when gentlemen wore blue coats with brass buttons, knee-breeches, and woollen stockings; and ladies were attired in short waists, low necks, and long ringlets. The Battle of Waterloo was quite a recent event; and the terror of "Boney" was still used by nursery maids to frighten their charges into good behaviour.

Perhaps some of those who take up this book and glance at its title-page are saying to themselves. We have plenty of stories about the children of to-day—the children of the twentieth century, not of the early nineteenth. How should it interest us to read of these little ones of the time of our great-grandparents, whose lives were so dull and ideas so old-fashioned; who never played cricket or tennis, or went to London or to the seaside, or rode bicycles, or did any of the things we do?

To anyone who is debating whether or no he will read the Fairchild Family, I would say, Try a chapter or two before you make up your mind. It is not what people do, but what they are that makes them interesting. True enough, Lucy, Emily and Henry led what we should call nowadays very dull lives; but they were by no means dull little people for all that. We shall find them very living and real when we make

In fact, as we get to know them—and, I hope, to love them—we shall realize, perhaps with wonder, how very like they are to the children of to-day. If they took us by the hand and led us to their playroom, or into "Henry's arbour" under the great trees, we should make friends with them in five minutes, even though they wear long straight skirts down to their ankles and straw bonnets burying their little faces, and Henry is attired in a frock and pinafore, albeit he is eight years old. We should have glorious games with them, following the fleet Lucy running like a hare; we should kiss them when we went away, and reckon them ever after among our friends.

And so, as we follow the History of the Fairchild Family we shall understand, better than we have yet done, how children are children everywhere, and very much the same from generation to generation. Knowing Lucy and Emily and Henry will help us to feel more sympathy with other children of bygone days, the children of our history books—with pretty Princess Amelia, and the little Dauphin in the Bastille, with sweet Elizabeth Stuart, the "rose-bud born in snow" of Carisbrook Castle, and a host of others. They were real children too, who had real treats and real punishments, real happy days and sad ones. They felt and thought and liked and disliked much the same things as we do now. We stretch out our hands to them across the misty centuries, and hail them our companions and playmates.

Few people nowadays, even among those who know the Fairchild Family, know anything of its writer, Mrs. Sherwood. Yet her life, as told by herself, is as amusing as a story, and as full of incidents as a life could well be. When she was a very old woman she wrote her autobiography, helped by her

The father of Mrs. Sherwood—or, to give her her maiden name, Mary Butt—was a clergyman. He had a beautiful country living called Stanford, in Worcestershire, not far from Malvern, where Mary was born on May 6, 1775. She had one brother, a year older than herself, and a sister several years younger, whose name was Lucy.

Mary Butt's childhood, in her beautiful country home, was very happy. She was extremely tall for her age, strong and vigorous, with glowing cheeks and dark eyes and "very long hair of a bright auburn," which she tells us her mother had great pleasure in arranging. She and her brother Marten were both beautiful children; but no one thought Mary at all clever, or fancied what a mark she would make in the world by her writings.

Mary was a dreamy, thoughtful child, full of fancies and imaginings. She loved to sit on the stairs, listening to her mother's voice singing sweetly in her dressing-room to her guitar. She had wonderful fancies about an echo which the children discovered in the hilly grounds round the rectory. Echo she believed to be a beautiful winged boy; "and I longed to see him, though I knew it was in vain to attempt to pursue him to his haunts; neither was Echo the only unseen being who filled my imagination." Her mother used to tell her and Marten stories in the dusk of winter evenings; one of those stories she tells again for other children in the Fairchild Family. It is the tale of the old lady who was so fond of inviting children to spend a day with her.

The first grand event of Mary's life was a journey taken to Lichfield, to stay with her grandfather, old Dr. Butt, at his house called Pipe Grange. She was then not quite four years old. Dr. Butt had been a friend, in former days, of Maria Edgeworth, who wrote the Parents' Assistant and other delightful stories; of Mr. Day, author of Sandford and Merton; and other clever people then living at Lichfield. He knew the

Soon afterwards the nursery party at Stanford was increased by two little cousins, Henry and Margaret Sherwood. They had lost their mother, and were sent to be for a time under the care of their aunt, Mrs. Butt. They joined in the romps of Marten and Mary, and very lively romps they seem to have been. Mary describes how her brother used to put her in a drawer and kick it down the nursery stairs; how he heaped chairs and tables one on the other, set her at the top of them, and then threw them all down; how he put a bridle round her neck and drove her about with a whip. "But," she says, "being a very hardy child, and not easily hurt, I suppose I had myself to blame for some of his excesses; for with all this he was the kindest of brothers to me, and I loved him very, very much."

When Mary was six years old she began to make stories, but she tells us she had not the least recollection of what they were about. She was not yet able to write, so whenever she had thought out a story, she had to follow her mother about with a slate and pencil and get her to write at her dictation. The talk Mary and Marten heard while sitting at meals with their parents was clever and interesting. Many visitors came to the house, and after a while there were several young men living there, pupils of Mr. Butt, so that there was often a large party. The two little children were never allowed to interrupt, but had to sit and listen, "whether willing or not"; and in this

Marten, meanwhile, was having a much less strict and severe time of it. Mr. Butt was an easy-going man, who liked everything about him to be comfortable and pretty, and was not inclined to take much trouble either with himself or others. While Mary was with her mother in her dressing-room, working away at her books, Marten was supposed to be learning Latin in his father's study. But as Mr. Butt had no idea of authority, Marten made no progress whatever, and the end of it was that good Mrs. Butt had to teach herself Latin, in order to become her boy's tutor; and Mary was made to take it up as well, in order to incite him to learn.

The children were great readers, though their books were few. Robinson Crusoe; two sets of fairy tales; The Little Female Academy; and Æsop's Fables made up their whole library. Robinson Crusoe was Marten's favourite book; his wont, when a reading fit was on, was to place himself on the bottom step of the stairs and to mount one step every time he turned over a page. Mary, of course, copied him exactly. Another funny custom with the pair was, on the first day of every month, to take two sticks, with certain notches cut in them, and hide them in a hollow tree in the woods. There was a grand mystery about this, though Mary does not tell us

In the summer that Mary was eight years old, a quaint visitor came to Stanford Rectory. This was a distant relative who had married a Frenchman and lived at Paris through the gay and wicked period which ushered in the French Revolution. Mary's description of this lady and her coming to the rectory is very amusing: "Never shall I forget the arrival of Mme. de Pelevé at Stanford. She arrived in a post-chaise with a maid, a lap-dog, a canary-bird, an organ, and boxes heaped upon boxes till it was impossible to see the persons within. I was, of course, at the door to watch her alight. She was a large woman, elaborately dressed, highly rouged, carrying an umbrella, the first I had seen. She was dark, I remember, and had most brilliant eyes. The style of dress at that period was perhaps more preposterous and troublesome than any which has prevailed within the memory of those now living. This style had been introduced by the ill-fated Marie Antoinette, and Mme. de Pelevé had come straight from the very fountain-head of these absurdities. The hair was worn crisped or violently frizzed about the face in the shape of a horse-shoe; long stiff curls, fastened with pins, hung on the neck; and the whole was well pomatumed and powdered with different coloured powders. A high cushion was fastened at the top of the hair, and over that either a cap adorned with artificial flowers and feathers to such a height as sometimes rendered it somewhat difficult to preserve its equilibrium, or a balloon hat, a fabric of wire and tiffany, of immense circumference. The hat would require to be fixed on the head with long pins, and standing, trencherwise, quite flat and unbending in its full proportions. The crown was low, and, like the cap, richly set off with feathers and flowers. The lower part of the dress consisted of a full petticoat generally flounced, short sleeves, and a very long train; but instead of a hoop there was a vast pad at the bottom of the waist behind, and a frame of wire in front to throw out the neckerchief, so as much as possible to resemble the craw of a pigeon.

"Such were the leading articles of this style of dress, and so arranged was the figure which stepped forth from the chaise at the door of the lovely and simple parsonage of Stanford. My father was ready to hand her out, my mother to welcome her. The band-boxes were all conveyed into our best bedroom, while Madame had her place allotted to her in our drawing-room, where she sat like a queen, and really, by the multitudes of anecdotes she had to tell, rendered herself very agreeable. Whilst she was with us she never had concluded her toilet before one or two in the day, and she always appeared either in new dresses or new adjustments. I have often wished that I could recall some of the anecdotes she used to tell of the Court of Versailles, but one only can I remember; it referred to the then popular song of 'Marlbrook,' which she used to sing. 'When the Dauphin,' she said, 'was born, a nurse was procured for him from the country, and there was no song with which she could soothe the babe but 'Marlbrook,' an old ballad, sung till then only in the provinces. The poor Queen heard the air, admired, and brought it forward, making it the fashion.' This is the only one of Mme. de Pelevé's stories which I remember, although I was very greatly amused by them, and could have listened to her for hours together. My admiration was also strongly excited by the splendour and varieties of her dresses, her superb trimmings, her sleeves tied with knots of coloured ribbon, her trains of silk, her beautiful hats, and I could not understand the purpose for which she took so much pains to array herself."

I think when we read of Miss Crosbie's arrival at Mr. Fairchild's, and the time she kept them all waiting for supper while she changed her gown, we shall be reminded of these early recollections of Mrs. Sherwood's. A year or two later this quaint Madame came again on a visit to Stanford; and on this occasion, as Mary tells us, she put it into the little girl's head, for the first time, to wonder whether she were pretty or no. "No sooner was dinner over," she says, "than I ran upstairs to a large mirror to make the important inquiry, and at this mirror I stood a long time, turning round and

By this time dear brother Marten had been sent away to school at Reading; but little Lucy was growing old enough to be something of a playmate; and Margaret, the motherless cousin, had been brought again to Stanford on a long visit. We can fancy what a delightful companion to these two small ones Mary must have been. She had left off, for the time, writing stories, but she was never tired of telling them. In company she was, in those days, very silent and shy, and much at a loss for words; but they never failed her when telling her stories to her little companions. Her head, she says, was full of "fairies, wizards, enchanters, and all the imagery of heathen gods and goddesses which I could get out of any book in my father's study," and with these she wove the most wonderful tales, one story often going on, at every possible interval, for months together. Her lively imagination "filled every region of the wild woods at Stanford with imaginary people. Wherever I saw a few ashes in a glade, left by those who burnt sticks to sell the ashes to assist in the coarse washings in farmhouses, I fixed a hoard of gipsies and made long stories. If I could discern fairy rings, which abounded in those woods, they gave me another set of images; and I had imaginary hermits in every hollow of the rocky sides of the dingle, and imaginary castles on every height; whilst the church and churchyard supplied me with more ghosts and apparitions than I dared to tell of." Mary and her stories must have been better worth having than a whole library of "fairy-books."

One source from which Mary drew her tales was a collectionArcadia, and in illustrated books of travel; spending many hours on a high stool in the bookroom, among "moths, dust, and black calf-skin," studying these treasures.

One more glimpse must be given of those happy child-days, and we will have it in Mary's own words: "I grew so rapidly in my childhood, that at thirteen I had obtained my full height, which is considered above the usual standard of women. I stooped very much when thus growing. As my mother always dressed me like a child in a pinafore, I must certainly have been a very extraordinary sort of personage, and everyone cried out on seeing me as one that was to be a giantess. As my only little friend of about my own age was small and delicate, I was very often thoroughly abashed at my appearance; and therefore never was I so happy as when I was out of sight of visitors in my own beloved woods of Stanford. In those sweet woods I had many little embowered corners, which no one knew but myself; and there, when my daily tasks were done, I used to fly with a book and enjoy myself in places where I could hear the cooing of doves, the note of the blackbird, and the rush of two waterfalls coming from two sides of the valley and meeting within the range where I might stroll undisturbed by anyone. It must be noticed that I never made these excursions without carrying a huge wooden doll with me, which I generally slung with a string round my waist under my pinafore, as I was thought by the neighbours too big to like a doll. My sister, as a child, had not good health, and therefore she could bear neither the exposure nor fatigue I did; hence the reason wherefore I was so much alone. From this cause, too, she was never submitted to the same discipline that I was; she was never made so familiar with the stocks and iron collar, nor the heavy tasks; for after my brother was gone to school I still was carried on in my Latin studies, and even before I was twelve I was obliged to translate fifty lines

When Mary was between twelve and thirteen a great change came in her life. Her father was presented to the vicarage of Kidderminster in Staffordshire, where the carpets are made. It was then a very rich living. It was settled that they should go to Kidderminster to live, while a curate was to do duty at Stanford and occupy the rectory. In those days clergymen often held two or even three livings at once in different parts of the country, taking the stipends themselves, and putting a curate in charge of whichever parishes they did not choose to reside in.

Mary was pleased at the idea of a change, as children generally are; and so was her father, who loved society and the noise and bustle of a town. But to poor Mrs. Butt, who was a very shy, timid, retiring person, the idea of exchanging "the glorious groves of Stanford for a residence in a town, where nothing is seen but dusty houses and dyed worsted hanging to dry on huge frames in every open space," was terrible. Mary could well remember how, during that summer, her mother walked in the woods, crying bitterly and fretting over the coming change till her health suffered.

Life in the big manufacturing town was much less wild and free than it had been in the Worcestershire parsonage; but the two little girls managed to be very happy in their own way. For one thing, they had a bedroom looking into the street, and a street was a new thing to them, and they spent every idle moment in staring out of the windows. They had a cupboard in which they kept their treasures—a dolls' house which they had brought from Stanford, and all the books they had hoarded up from childhood; "these, with two white cats, which we had also brought from Stanford, happily afforded us much amusement." Mary's rage for dolls was, moreover, at its height, though she more than ever took pains to hide her darlings, under her pinafore, from the eyes of Kidderminster.

Most of all, however, they amused themselves, when alone, by talking together in characters, keeping to the same year

Not long after their coming to Kidderminster, Mary's father took her with him on a visit to a large country house in Shropshire. They drove all the way in a gig, a man-servant riding behind on horseback. They reached the house just in time to dress for dinner, at which there was to be a large party. Mary had to put on her "very best dress, which," she tells us, "was a blue silk slip, with a muslin frock over it, a blue sash, and, oh! sad to say, my silver tiffany hat. I did not dare but wear it, as it had been sent with me."

A maid had been told off to dress Mary, and "great was the pains which she took to fix my shepherdess hat on one side, as it was intended to be worn, and to arrange my hair, which was long and hanging in curls; but what would I not have given to have got rid of the rustling tiffany!" Mary describes her consternation when she reached the drawing-room in this array, and found "a number of great people" there, but no other child to consort with. When everybody went to walk in the shrubberies after dinner, and a gentleman offered her his arm, as was the wont in those days, she was so panic-stricken that she darted up a bank, through the shrubs and away, and showed herself no more that evening.

The next thing that happened was that the other little cousin before mentioned, Henry Sherwood, came to live with the

Mary has other amusing recollections of this time of her early girlhood, and tells them in her own charming way; but we must pass on to her school life, which is bound to interest her readers of to-day, so many of whom go to school. It was the summer of 1790. Mr. Butt had been taking his turn of duty at the Chapel Royal, St. James's, being by this time one of the chaplains to the King. On his way home he stopped at Reading to visit his friend Dr. Valpy, in whose school Marten had for a time been educated.

During this visit Dr. Valpy took him to see "a sort of exhibition" got up by the "young ladies" of M. and Mme. de St. Quentin's school. This famous school, which was afterwards removed to London, was held then in the old Abbey at Reading. "This," thought Mr. Butt, "is the very place for Mary"; and to the Abbey School it was decided that she should go.

Marten was now at Westminster School. When the time came for him to return after the holidays, Mary had a seat in the chaise, and drove with him and her father as far as Reading. You will be amused by her description of her school and schoolmistresses, and of her first introduction to them.

"The house—or, rather, the Abbey itself—was exceedingly

When Mary arrived at the Abbey the holidays were not quite over, and she was the first of the sixty pupils to present herself. The school was kept by Mme. de St. Quentin and a Mrs. Latournelle, who were partners. "Madame," as the girls always called her, was an Englishwoman by birth, but had married a French refugee whom circumstances had obliged to become French teacher in the school. Madame was a handsome woman, with bright eyes and a very dignified presence. Mary tells us that she danced remarkably well, played and sang and did fine needlework, and "spoke well and agreeably in English and in French without fear." Mrs. Latournelle was a funny, old-fashioned body, whose chief concern was with the housekeeping, tea-making, and other domestic duties. She had a cork leg, and her dress had never been known to change its fashion. "Her white muslin handkerchief was always pinned with the same number of pins; her muslin apron always hung in the same form; she always wore the same short sleeves, cuffs, and ruffles, with a breast-bow to answer the bow on her cap, both being flat with two notched ends."

Mrs. Latournelle received Mary in a wainscotted parlour, hung round with miniatures and pieces of framed needlework done in chenille, representing tombs and weeping willows. Mary was to be what in those days was known as a "parlour-boarder," which meant that she was treated in part as a

Mary was "vastly amused," during the first few days, at seeing her future school-fellows arrive one after another. The two first to come were a pair of twin sisters named Martha and Mary Lee, so exactly alike that they could only be distinguished by a mark which one had on her forehead under the hair. There were many other big girls, but none besides herself who were parlour-boarders during that quarter. Mary soon chose out three to be her special friends; a Miss Poultenham, Amelia Reinagle (daughter of an artist who in that day was rather celebrated), and Mary Brown—niece of Mrs. Latournelle.

M. and Mme. de St. Quentin presently returned, and Mary tells us how shy she felt when "Monsieur" summoned her to undergo a sort of examination. "Full well I remember the morning when he called me into his study to feel the pulse of my intellect, as he said, in order that he might know in what class to place me. All the girls whom he particularly instructed were standing by, all of them being superior to me in the knowledge of those things usually taught in schools. Behold me, then, in imagination, tall as I am now, standing before my master, and blushing till my blushes made me ashamed to look up. 'Eh bien, mademoiselle,' he said, 'have you much knowledge of French?' 'No, sir,' I answered. 'Are you much acquainted with history?' And he went on from one thing to another, asking me questions, and always receiving a negative. At length, smiling, he said: 'Tell me, mademoiselle, then, what you do know.' I stammered 'Latin—Virgil,' and finished off with a regular flood of tears. At this he laughed outright, and immediately set me down in his class and gave me lessons for every day."

The discipline of the Abbey seems to have been very slack, especially for the big girls. This is how Mary describes it: "The liberty which the first class had was so great that, if we attended our tutor in his study for an hour or two every morning, no human being ever took the trouble to enquire where we spent the rest of the day between our meals. Thus, whether we gossiped in one turret or another, whether we lounged about the garden or out of the window above the gateway, no one so much as said, 'Where have you been, mademoiselle?'"

Mary Butt spent a year at Reading, where she learnt a good deal of French, and not, it would seem, much of anything else. She left it the following Christmas with many tears, thinking that her school-days were over; but a few months later her parents decided to send her back to the Abbey for another year, and that her sister Lucy should go too. That was in the autumn of 1792, when the French Revolution was just beginning. On January 21, 1793, the terrible news came of the murder of the unhappy King, Louis XVI. All Europe, and England especially, were horrified at the cruel deed; and at the Abbey, where there was a strong French Royalist element, feeling ran particularly high. "Monsieur and Madame went into deep mourning, as did also many of the elder girls. Multitudes of the French nobility came thronging into Reading, gathering about the Abbey, and some of them half living within its walls." Our friend Mary, as a half-fledged young lady, saw a great deal of these poor refugees, who had lost everything but their lives. They seem, however, to have shown the true French courage and gaiety under evil circumstances. There was much singing and playing under the trees; and they helped the school-girls to get up some little French plays to act at their breaking-up party. Mary took a part in the character of a French abbess, but she tells us that "assuredly" her talents never lay in the acting line, and very honestly adds: "I could never sufficiently have forgotten myself as to have acted well."

Soon after Mary's finally leaving school her parents decided to put a curate in charge of the Kidderminster living, and to

The young Butts went across very often to dine at the Court; and on these occasions their hostess, Lady Winnington, got up little impromptu dances, which they greatly enjoyed. "Often," Mary writes, "when we dined at the Court she would send for the miller, who played the violin, and set us all to dance. My brother was always the partner of the eldest Miss Winnington, and as neither of them could tell one tune from another or dance a single step, we generally marvelled how they got on at all. The steward also, a great, big, and in our opinion most supremely ugly man, generally fell to my sister's lot. Thus, we did very well, and enjoyed ourselves in our own way. Sometimes the old Welsh harper came, and then we had a more set dance, and some of the ladies'-maids, and one or two of the upper men-servants, and the miller himself, and Mr. Taylor of the Fall, and the miller's brother Tommy, were asked, and then things were carried on in a superior style. We went into a larger room, and there was more change of partners; but as nothing could have induced the son and heir to ask a stranger, I always had him, whilst Miss Winnington and my sister sometimes fell to the share of the miller and his brother, the miller being himself musical and footing it to the tune better than his partners. The miller's brother seemed to wheel along rather than dance, throwing himself back and looking, in his white waistcoat which was kept for these grand occasions, not unlike a sack of meal set upright on trucks and so pushed about the room. I am ready to laugh to this hour when I think of these balls, and I certainly obtained very high

The happy life at Stanford was not destined to last long, for Mr. Butt's health began to fail, and in the autumn of 1795 he died. Mrs. Butt took a house at Bridgnorth, and settled there with her two daughters. Mary had now begun to write in good earnest; and while living at Bridgnorth two of her tales were published, one called Margarita and the other Susan Grey. Probably very few people now living have ever seen or read these stories; and if we did come across them it is to be feared we should think them very dull and long-winded. But when new they were much admired, particularly Susan Grey, which was one of the earliest tales written to interest rich and educated people in the poor and ignorant. It was widely read and reprinted many and many times.

In spite of the pleasure and excitement of authorship, life in the little house in the sleepy town of Bridgnorth was very dull and cramped to the two young girls; and they were made much happier, because they were much busier, when the clergyman of one of the town churches asked them to undertake the management of his Sunday school. This is what Sunday school teaching meant at the end of the eighteenth century: "We attended the school so diligently on the Sunday that the parents brought the children in crowds, and we were obliged to stop short when each of us had about thirty-five girls and the old schoolmaster as many boys. We made bonnets and tippets for our girls; we walked with them to church; we looked them up in the week days; we were vastly busy; we were first amused, and next deeply interested."—"Sunday schools," she goes on to say, "then were comparatively new things, so that our attentions were more valued then than they would be nowadays."

The next important event in Mary's life was her marriage with her cousin Henry, by which she became the "Mrs. Sherwood" whose name has been a household word to generations of children. Henry Sherwood had had a curious history, and had endured many hardships and adventures in his youthful

Henry Sherwood soon afterwards entered the army, joining the regiment then known as the 53rd Foot; and about the same time he began to come to Bridgnorth, where his pretty young cousin, Mary Butt, was growing more and more attractive. After a while he wrote her a letter, asking if she would be his wife; and on June 30, 1803, they were married at Bridgnorth.

Mary's marriage made a great change in her life. She had married into what used to be called a "marching regiment," which was constantly on the move from one station to another. After being transferred from place to place several times within a year, with long, wearisome journeys both by sea and land, following the regiment as it marched, the news came that the 53rd was ordered on foreign service, which meant a longer journey still. It was presently known that the regiment's destination was the East Indies, or, as we should now call it, India. This was a great blow to poor Mrs. Sherwood, for by

The regiment embarked at Portsmouth. Captain and Mrs. Sherwood had a miserable little cabin rigged up on deck, made only of canvas, and with a huge gun filling more than half the space. The vessel in which they sailed was called the Devonshire. It was quite a fleet that set sail, for besides the vessels needed to convey the troops, there had to be several armed cruisers in attendance. The war with France was going on, and there was continual danger of an attack by the enemy. When they had been more than three months at sea, three strange vessels were sighted, two of which soon ran up the French colours and began to fire, without the slightest warning, upon the English vessels. In a moment all was bustle on board the Devonshire, clearing the decks for action. The women and children were sent down into the hold, where they had to sit for hours in the dark, some way below watermark, while the shots whistled through the rigging overhead, the guns roared, the ladders had been taken away, and none of them could learn a word of what was going forward on deck, where their husbands and fathers were helping to man the guns. The fighting continued till late at night, but no serious damage befell the Devonshire. At length the women and children were hoisted up out of the hold, and "enjoyed some negus and biscuits."

From that time they saw no more of the French. At last the voyage, with its anxieties and discomforts, was over; the Devonshire sailed into the Hoogli and anchored in Diamond Harbour, expecting boats to come down from Calcutta to carry the regiment up there.

It would take too long to tell the story of the Sherwoods' life in India, though Mrs. Sherwood's account of it is very good reading. Two or three scenes will give you some notion of how she spent her time.

A certain number of the soldiers of the regiment were allowed to bring their wives and children out with them. There were no Government schools then for the regimental children, so that these little people idled away their time round the barracks,Stories on the Church Catechism, which can still be bought, and which give a very interesting picture of the life of a soldier's child in India some eighty years ago.

Besides her day-school, Mrs. Sherwood collected in her house several little orphans, the children of poor soldiers' wives who quickly died in the trying climate of India. She found some of these children being dreadfully neglected and half starved, so took them home to her and brought them up with her own children. She gives an amusing description of her home life in India during the hot season, so terribly trying to Europeans: "The mode of existence of an English family during the hot winds in India is so very unlike anything in Europe that I must not omit to describe it. Every outer door of the house and every window is closed; all the interior doors and venetians are, however, open, whilst most of the private apartments are shut in by drop-curtains or screens of grass, looking like fine wire-work, partially covered with green silk. The hall, which never has any other than borrowed lights in any bungalow, is always in the centre of the house, and ours at Cawnpore had a large room on each side of it, with baths and sleeping-rooms. In the hot winds I always sat in the hall at Cawnpore. Though I was that year without a baby of my own, I had my orphan, my little Annie, always by me, quietly occupying herself when not actually receiving instruction from me. I had given her

"She was the neatest of all neat little people, somewhat faddy and particular, perchance. She was the child, of all others, to live with an ancient grandmother. Annie's treasures were few, but they were all contained in her green box. She never wanted occupation; she was either dressing her doll or finding pretty verses in her Bible, marking the places with an infinitude of minute pieces of paper. It was a great delight to me to have this little quiet one by my side.

"In another part of this hall sat Mr. Sherwood during most part of the morning, either engaged with his accounts, his journal, or his books. He, of course, did not like the confinement so well as I did, and often contrived to get out to a neighbour's bungalow in his palanquin during some part of the long morning. In one of the side-rooms sat Sergeant Clarke, with his books and accounts. This worthy and most methodical personage used to fill up his time in copying my manuscripts in a very neat hand, and in giving lessons in reading and spelling, etc., to Annie. In the other room was the orphan Sally, with her toys. Beside her sat her attendant, chewing her paun[A] and enjoying a state of perfect apathy. Thus did our mornings pass, whilst we sat in what the lovers of broad daylight would call almost darkness. During these mornings we heard no sounds but the monotonous click, click of the punkah,[B] or the melancholy moaning of the burning blast without, with the splash and dripping of the water thrown over the tatties.[C] At one o'clock, or perhaps somewhat later, the tiffin [answering to our luncheon] was always served, a hot dinner, in fact, consisting always of curry and a variety of vegetables. We often dined at this hour, the children at a little table in the room, after which we all lay down, the adults

The days spent in that strange hot twilight must have seemed very long to children, even to those who had forgotten or never known the freedom of life in England; but Mrs. Sherwood had plenty of ways of filling her long quiet hours. She wrote a number of little stories about life in India, which were very much liked in their day and went through many editions. One of these was called The Ayah and Lady, and told about a native servant, her ignorant notions and strange ways, and how her mistress tried to do her good. Another was Lucy and her Dhaye, the history of a little English girl and her dark-skinned nurse, who was so devoted to her that she nearly broke her heart when Lucy went home to England and she was left behind. But the best of them all was Little Henry and his Bearer, which is one of the most famous stories ever written for children. The history of little Henry, the neglected orphan child whom nobody loved save his poor faithful heathen "bearer," or native servant, is exceedingly pretty and touching.

Mrs. Sherwood was always thinking about children and trying to find out ways of helping them to be happy and good. A page from her diary will show how often she must have been grieved and distressed at the spoilt boys and girls she saw in the houses of the English merchants and Civil servants at Calcutta and elsewhere.

"I must now proceed," she writes, "to some description of Miss Louisa, the eldest daughter then in India of our friends, who at that time might have been about six or seven. She was tall of her age, very brown, and very pale. She had been entirely reared in India, and was accustomed from her earliest infancy to be attended by a multitude of servants, whom she

"The quantity of inner and outer garments worn by a little girl in England would render it extremely fatiguing to change the dress so often as our little ladies are required to do in India. Miss Louisa's attire consisted of a single garment, a frock body without sleeves, attached to a pair of trousers, with rather a short, full skirt gathered into the body with the trousers, so as to form one whole, the whole being ruffled with the finest jindelly, a cloth which is not unlike cambric, every ruffle being plaited in the most delicate manner. These ruffles are doubled and trebled on the top of the arm, forming there a substitute for a sleeve; and the same is done around the ankle, answering the purpose almost of a stocking, or at least concealing its absence. Fine coloured kid shoes ought to have

"How many times in a day the dress of Miss Louisa was renewed, who shall say? It, however, depended much upon the accidents which might happen to it; but four times was the usual arrangement, which was once before breakfast, once after, once again before tiffin, and once again for the evening airing. The child, being now nearly seven years old, was permitted to move about the house independently of her ayah; thus, she was sometimes in the hall, sometimes in the veranda, sometimes in one room, sometimes in another. In an Indian house in the hot season no inner door is ever shut, and curtains only are hung in the doorways, so that this little wild one was in and out and everywhere just as it hit her fancy. She had never been taught even to know her letters; she had never been kept to any task; she was a complete slave of idleness, restlessness, and ennui. 'It is time for Louisa to go to England,' was quietly remarked by the parents; and no one present controverted the point."

Children like this must have made the good Mrs. Sherwood very unhappy; her own little ones—of whom she had three who lived to come home to England—were very differently brought up. She had also a lovely little boy named Henry, and a little fair-haired Lucy, who both died in India before they were two years old.

It would be impossible to end even this short sketch of Mrs. Sherwood's Indian life without mentioning her friendship with Henry Martyn, that saintly soul and famous missionary in India and Persia. When the Sherwoods knew him he was Government chaplain at Dinapore, a great military station, at which the 53rd Foot then was. Mrs. Sherwood nursed him through a bad illness, and she and her husband afterwards paid him a visit in his quarters at Cawnpore, to which place he had been transferred. He had a school at Cawnpore for little native children; and worked hard at preaching to the heathen; while all the time doing his utmost for the soldiers of the various regiments stationed in the barracks. The Sherwoods

After being about twelve years in the East, the 53rd Regiment was ordered home, and very thankful Captain and Mrs. Sherwood were to bring the children they still had living safely back to a more healthy climate. Two of the orphans came with them, so there was quite a party of little people on board the ship; and when they landed at Liverpool they must have been a very quaint-looking group, for "we had not a bonnet in the party; we all wore caps trimmed with lace, white dresses, and Indian shawls." Can we wonder if, as Mrs. Sherwood goes on to say, "we were followed wherever we went by hundreds of the residents of Liverpool"?

The rest of Mrs. Sherwood's long life was spent in England, save for an occasional visit to France and Switzerland. She and her husband settled in the west, where she had been born and bred, and of which she was so fond. She had more children, most of whom died young; and she lived a very busy, active, useful life, working hard at writing stories and tracts, visiting the prison at Worcester, and doing whatever good and useful work lay within her power.

The first part of the Fairchild Family was published in 1818. It was so popular that, more than twenty years afterwards, she wrote a second part, which, as you will see, begins at p. 150. As we read we shall notice little points of difference between it and the first part; but our friends, Lucy, Emily, and Henry are just as nice and as naughty, as good and as silly, as they were in the opening chapters of the book.

A few years later, when a very old woman, Mrs. Sherwood wrote a third part of the Fairchild Family, in which she was helped by her daughter, Mrs. Kelly. But this third part is less entertaining and interesting than the two which went before it, and is also not entirely Mrs. Sherwood's own work; so you will not find it printed here.

In 1851 Mrs. Sherwood died at Twickenham, where she had

MARY E. PALGRAVE.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] Described in Little Henry and his Bearer as "an intoxicating mixture of opium and sugar."

[B] The huge fan, hanging from the ceiling, by which the air of houses in India is kept moving.

[C] The "tatta" is a blind, or screen, woven of sweet-smelling grass, which is kept constantly wet by the water-carriers.

PAGE

Introduction ix

PART I

The Birthday Walk 3

Mrs. Fairchild's Story 9

On Envy 19

Story of the Apples 25

Story of an Unhappy Day 34

Story of Ambition; or, The Wish to be Great 45

The All-Seeing God 59

Emily's Recovery, and the Old Story of Mrs. Howard 67

Sad Story of a Disobedient Child 84

The Two Books 87

The History of the Orphan Boy 92

The History of Little Henri 107

A Story of Besetting Sins 131

A Visit to Mary Bush 143

PART II

Story of Miss Crosbie's Presents 150

A Visit to Mrs. Goodriche 159

162

The Fair Little Lady 181

Story of a Holiday 184

Little Edwy and the Echo 189

Further Story of a Holiday 203

The Happy Evening 216

Breakfast at Mr. Burke's 222

The Unruly Family 228

Story of Henry's Adventure 238

The Story in Emily's Book. (Part I.) 245

The Story in Emily's Book. (Part II.) 258

Guests at Mr. Fairchild's 286

More about Bessy 300

Bessy's Misfortunes 313

History of Little Bernard Low. (Part I.) 326

History of Little Bernard Low. (Part II.) 341

History of Little Bernard Low. (Part III.) 354

The Birthday Feast 382

Grandmamma Fairchild 400

Great Changes 408

Grandmamma and the Children 416

History of Evelyn Vaughan. (Part I) 421

History of Evelyn Vaughan. (Part II.) 446

Farewell to the Old Home 464

PAGE

Frontispiece—Mr. and Mrs. Fairchild had three children, Lucy, Emily and Henry.

Good children 3

They ran on before 5

Here were abundance of flowers 8

"I sat down on one of the branches to eat cherries" 9

Mrs. Grace taught me to sew, and Mrs. Penelope taught me to read 11

"How lovely! How beautiful!" 19

She saw that it was a ring 24

Henry stood under the apple-tree 25

There was one he could just reach 27

Behind the stable 33

Lucy and Emily 34

Away he ran into the garden, followed by Lucy and Emily 37

They went along the great gallery 45

Emily and Lucy had never seen such fine clothes before 53

Dressed 58

At last she fell asleep 59

She took two or three damsons, which she ate in great haste 61

"What sound is that I hear?" said Emily 67

Emily and her brother and sister went to play in the garden 69

"I'll see now if I can't spoil Miss Patty's smart silk slip" 75

Looking in the glass, with a candle in her hand 84

87

Henry reads the story 91

Marten behaved well at breakfast 92

A little old lady, dressed in a gray silk gown, came into the kitchen 99

Marten goes to school 106

Henri stood at the window 107

"Do you remember anything of the sermon?" 131

Miss Betsy 142

The children looked at the kittens 143

Drinking tea at the door of the cottage, round the little table 147

Miss Crosbie spoke kindly to her 150

In the summer parlour 159

When Betty returned, Mrs. Howard was well satisfied 162

The happy little girls went with the dolls into the bow-window 175

The coach came in sight 181

Henry looked along the road 184

He turned away from the terrible bird 189

Could it be her own—her Edwy? She could hardly be sure of her happiness 199

"Oh Papa! Mamma! Come to Edwy!" 202

"She will get amongst the shrubs," said Emily 203

Emily and Henry gave their supper to the little children 213

The magpie on the stile 215

Preparing the peas for supper 216

A sturdy boy of four, roaring and blubbering 222

They had a game at marbles 228

The noise continued till the two brothers were fairly out of the house 231

Lucy and Emily had now each a doll 245

Going gaily down the hill 258

Margot rose and made a curtsey 263

Meeta offered to carry the honey 285

"She does not know that I made a slit in my frock" 286

Cutting off faded flowers, and picking up the dead leaves 297

Off she ran after him 299

She saw Bessy amongst some gooseberry bushes 300

"What! what!" cried Mrs. Goodriche 303

Bessy was crying most piteously 313

319

Bessy was very sorry to leave her young friends 326

But when Bernard was actually to go there was such a to-do 333

"Let us sit here under the shade of a tree" 341

He took up a slip of wood 353

There was no end of the indulgences given in private to the boy 354

Bernard rushed to meet Lucilla 381

She only seemed anxious that Lucy and Emily should look well 382

For a long time they were all very still with their toys 387

In their neatest morning dress 399

"Will Lucy love me?" said the old lady 400

"Here, ma'am, you can gather any you like" 408

It was Emily's step 415

Grandmamma was very much pleased with Lucy's stories 416

A hundred years ago 420

To teach little Francis his letters 421

"I cannot tell what the child's head is running on" 431

To hang flowers round its neck 445

Miss Anne Vaughan led her niece by the hand 446

"What a bustle there is to get ready on a dancing day" 451

Henry reminded her of the robin 464

Someone was waving something white 470