Page:Blanchard on L. E. L.pdf/12

12 be comforted; but when she brought her reward with her, she never failed to display it in the drawing-room, and then share it with me. She must," he adds, "have been very quick at that early age, for she seldom came empty-handed, and I soon began to look for the hour of her return, for which I had such very good reasons." When in her sixth year she was sent to a school kept by Miss Rowden,* at No. 22, Hans-place—the house in which she afterwards resided for several years as a boarder. It seems to have been appropriated to such purposes from the time it was built; nor was L. E. L. the first who drank at the "well of English" within its walls. Miss Mitford, we believe, was educated there, and Lady Caroline Lamb was an inmate for a time. Here the little pupil's powers were so highly appreciated, that Miss Rowden presented her with a frock of her own working; it was long regarded as a robe of grace. One only complaint of misconduct in "the clever little child" was ever made, but this was a frequent one, and the fault was strikingly characteristic. Nothing could make L. E. L. walk quietly in the ranks with other children. The family residing near, she was sure to espy one of them, or a servant, or her nurse, and dart away she would. "On one of these occasions," says her brother, "and it is the second trait that I vividly call to remembrance, her nurse had purposely thrown herself in the way of the school and brought home her charge. My sister, on her arrival, wanted me to descend from a magnificent rocking-horse on which I chanced to be mounted, and on my refusal