HANNAH MORE, scribbling a moral essay or poem on any scrap of paper she could obtain, which she would afterwards conceal in the `dark corner where brushes and dusters were kept by the housemaid. Her sister Sally, with whom she slept, was the chosen confi- dant of her nightly effusions. The dearness of writing materials was a terrible obstacle, to her literary aspirations ; and the loftiest wish her fertile imagination could frame was that she might one day be wealthy enough to have a whole quire of writing- paper. Great was her delight, when, one golden birthday, her desire was gratified, her mother pre- senting her with the prize, which was speedily filled with letters of counsel and exhortation to imaginary depraved individuals, and answers expressive of repentance and promises of reformation. One of the characteristic sports of her childhood was to make a carriage of a chair, and fancy herself riding to London, " to visit bishops and booksellers," a fact which alone evinces the early bias ofher tastes and inclinations. As it was the desire of the parents that the sisters should be qualified to establish a boarding-school of a superior class, Mary was sent to a French school at Bristol, to acquire the French language. She went there every Saturday to take lessons, walking a distance of eight miles and back ; on her return, she taught her sisters what she had acquired. The fatigue of these exertions I was so great that the younggirlwouldfrequently faintfromutter exhaustion. 9
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