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 CHAPTER I

EARLY LIFE IN ENGLAND

1821

It is a great advantage to have been born one of a large family group of healthy, active children, surrounded by wholesome influences.

The natural and healthy discipline which children exercise upon one another, the variety of tastes and talents, the cheerful companionship, even the rivalries, misunderstandings, and reconciliations where free play is given to natural disposition, under wise but not too rigid oversight, form an excellent discipline for after-life.

Being the third daughter in a family of nine brothers and sisters, who grew up to adult life with strong ties of natural affection, I enjoyed this advantage.

My earliest recollections are connected with the house in Bristol, No. 1 Wilson Street, near Portman Square, to which the family removed from Counterslip, where I was born, when I was about three