The next day she invited some young ladies of my own age, to spend the day with me.  She had a swing put up in the garden for us, and a room cleared of the furniture that we might play at blindman’s-buff.  One of the liveliest of the girls, who had taken on herself the direction of our sports, she kept to be my companion all the time I staid with her, and every day contrived some new amusement for us.

Yet this good lady did not suffer all my time to pass in mirth and gaiety.  Before I went home, she explained to me very seriously the error into which I had fallen.  I found that so far from “Mahometism Explained” being a book concealed only in this library, it was well known to every person of the least information.

The Turks, she told me, were Mahometans, and that, if the leaves of my favourite book had not been torn out, I should have read that the author of it did not mean to give the fabulous stories here related as true, but only wrote it as giving a history of what the Turks, who are a very ignorant people, believe concerning the impostor Mahomet, who feigned himself to be a descendant of Ishmael.  By the good offices of the physician and his lady, I was carried home at the end of a month, perfectly cured of the error into which I had fallen, and very much ashamed of having believed so many absurdities.

VI

EMILY BARTON

(By Mary Lamb)

When I was a very young child, I remember residing with an uncle and aunt who lived in ——­shire.  I think I remained there near a twelvemonth.  I am ignorant of the cause of my being so long left there by my parents, who, though they were remarkably fond of me, never came to see me during all that time.  As I did not know I should ever have occasion to relate the occurrences of my life, I never thought of enquiring the reason.

I am just able to recollect, that when I first went there, I thought it was a fine thing to live in the country, and play with my little cousins in the garden all day long; and I also recollect, that I soon found that it was a very dull thing, to live in the country with little cousins who have a papa and mamma in the house, while my own dear papa and mamma were in London many miles away.

I have heard my papa observe, girls who are not well managed are a most quarrelsome race of little people.  My cousins very often quarrelled with me, and then they always said, “I will go and tell my mamma, cousin Emily;” and then I used to be very disconsolate because I had no mamma to complain to of my grievances.

My aunt always took Sophia’s part because she was so young; and she never suffered me to oppose Mary, or Elizabeth, because they were older than me.