Page:Notable Irishwomen.djvu/158

 describe her feelings of horror when his body was brought home.

Little Anna Maria seems to have had a free and happy childhood. Though she was petted, she was not spoilt, she loved all beautiful things, and made pets of all living creatures from a spider to a dog. Graige is by the seaside near Bannow, Co. Wexford, opposite to

in other words, where the Norman barons landed in 1169. Bannow, a peninsula that runs out into the sea, was the scene of nearly all Mrs. Hall's early sketches. She loved the district intensely, and, to the last, was an ardent worshipper of the sea. In a story called "Grandmamma's Pockets," she is assuredly giving a page of autobiography when she says:

"She was a light-hearted, merry, little maid, as ever lived, and had learned the happy art of manufacturing her own pleasures, and doing much to contribute to the pleasures of the few around her.

"In summer she walked, and ran, and bathed, and gathered shells and samphire, and sang with the birds, and galloped old Sorrel, and on Sundays always went in the old carriage, driven by the old coachman, drawn by the old horses, and escorted by the old footman, to the very old church."