During the winter of 1862-1863 Miss Marryat was in London, and for a few months I remained there with her, attending the admirable French classes of M. Roche.  In the spring I returned home to Harrow, going up each week to the classes; and when these were over, Auntie told me that she thought all she could usefully do was done, and that it was time that I should try my wings alone.  So well, however, had she succeeded in her aims, that my emancipation from the school-room was but the starting-point of more eager study, though now the study turned into the lines of thought towards which my personal tendencies most attracted me.  German I continued to read with a master, and music, under the marvellously able teaching of Mr. John Farmer, musical director of Harrow School, took up much of my time.  My dear mother had a passion for music, and Beethoven and Bach were her favorite composers.  There was scarcely a sonata of Beethoven’s that I did not learn, scarcely a fugue of Bach’s that I did not master.  Mendelssohn’s “Lieder” gave a lighter recreation, and many a happy evening did we spend, my mother and I, over the stately strains of the blind Titan, and the sweet melodies of the German wordless orator.  Musical “At Homes”, too, were favorite amusements at Harrow, and at these my facile fingers made me a welcome guest.

A very pleasant place was Harrow to a light-hearted serious-brained girl.  The picked men of the Schools of Oxford and Cambridge came there as junior masters, so that one’s partners at ball and croquet and archery could talk as well as flirt.  Never girl had, I venture to say, a brighter girlhood than mine.  Every morning and much of the afternoon spent in eager earnest study:  evenings in merry party or quiet home-life, one as delightful as the other.  Archery and croquet had in me a most devoted disciple, and the “pomps and vanities” of the ballroom found the happiest of votaries.  My darling mother certainly “spoiled” me, so far as were concerned all the small roughnesses of life.  She never allowed a trouble of any kind to touch me, and cared only that all worries should fall on her, all joys on me.  I know now what I never dreamed then, that her life was one of serious anxiety.  The heavy burden of my brother’s school and college-life pressed on her constantly, and her need of money was often serious.  A lawyer whom she trusted absolutely cheated her systematically, using for his own purposes the remittances she made for payment of liabilities, thus keeping upon her a constant drain.  Yet for me all that was wanted was ever there.  Was it a ball to which we were going?  I need never think of what I would wear till the time for dressing arrived, and there laid out ready for me was all I wanted, every detail complete from top to toe.  No hand but hers must dress my hair, which, loosed, fell in dense curly masses nearly to my knees; no hand but hers must fasten dress and deck with flowers, and if I sometimes would coaxingly ask if I might not