[Footnote 8:  Vol. xvii.  “Miscellanea.”]

In May 1866 my Mother started Aunt Judy’s Magazine for Children, and she called it by this title because “Aunt Judy” was the nickname we had given to Julie whilst she was yet our nursery story-teller, and it had been previously used in the titles of two of my Mother’s most popular books, “Aunt Judy’s Tales” and “Aunt Judy’s Letters.”

After my sister grew up, and began to publish stories of her own, many mistakes occurred as to the authorship of these books.  It was supposed that the Tales and Letters were really written by Julie, and the introductory portions that strung them together by my Mother.  This was a complete mistake; the only bits that Julie wrote in either of the books were three brief tales, in imitation of Andersen, called [9]"The Smut,” “The Crick,” and “The Brothers,” which were included in “The Black Bag” in “Aunt Judy’s Letters.”

[Footnote 9:  These have now been reprinted in vol. xvii.  “Miscellanea.”]

Julie’s first contribution to Aunt Judy’s Magazine was “Mrs. Overtheway’s Remembrances,” and between May 1866 and May 1867 the three first portions of “Ida,” “Mrs. Moss,” and “The Snoring Ghosts,” came out.  In these stories I can trace many of the influences which surrounded my sister whilst she was still the “always cayling Miss Julie,” suffering from constant attacks of quinsy, and in the intervals, reviving from them with the vivacity of Madam Liberality, and frequently going away to pay visits to her friends for change of air.

We had one great friend to whom Julie often went, as she lived within a mile of our home, but on a perfectly different soil to ours.  Ecclesfield stands on clay; but Grenoside, the village where our friend lived, is on sand, and much higher in altitude.  From it we have often looked down at Ecclesfield lying in fog, whilst at Grenoside the air was clear and the sun shining.  Here my sister loved to go, and from the home where she was so welcome and tenderly cared for, she drew (though no facts) yet much of the colouring which is seen in Mrs. Overtheway—­a solitary life lived in the fear of God; enjoyment of the delights of a garden; with tender treasuring of dainty china and household goods for the sake of those to whom such relics had once belonged.

Years after our friend had followed her loved ones to their better home, and had bequeathed her egg-shell brocade to my sister, Julie had another resting-place in Grenoside, to which she was as warmly welcomed as to the old one, during days of weakness and convalescence.  Here, in an atmosphere of cultivated tastes and loving appreciation, she spent many happy hours, sketching some of the villagers at their picturesque occupations of carpet-weaving and clog-making, or amusing herself in other ways. [10]This home, too, was broken up by Death, but Mrs. Ewing looked back to it with great affection, and when, at the beginning of her last illness, whilst she still expected to recover, she was planning a visit to her Yorkshire home, she sighed to think that Grenoside was no longer open to her.