tell you, of a very great weakness, if not wickedness, which I was guilty of towards my aunt.  But I must return to my studies, and tell you what books I found in the closet, and what reading I chiefly admired.  There was a great Book of Martyrs in which I used to read, or rather I used to spell out meanings; for I was too ignorant to make out many words; but there it was written all about those good men who chose to be burnt alive, rather than forsake their religion, and become naughty papists.  Some words I could make out, some I could not; but I made out enough to fill my little head with vanity, and I used to think I was so courageous I could be burnt too, and I would put my hands upon the flames which were pictured in the pretty pictures which the book had, and feel them; but, you know, ladies, there is a great difference between the flames in a picture, and real fire, and I am now ashamed of the conceit which I had of my own courage, and think how poor a martyr I should have made in those days.  Then there was a book not so big, but it had pictures in, it was called Culpepper’s Herbal; it was full of pictures of plants and herbs, but I did not much care for that.  Then there was Salmon’s Modern History, out of which I picked a good deal.  It had pictures of Chinese gods, and the great hooded serpent which ran strangely in my fancy.  There were some law books too, but the old English frighted me from reading them.  But above all, what I relished was Stackhouse’s History of the Bible, where there was the picture of the Ark and all the beasts getting into it.  This delighted me, because it puzzled me, and many an aching head have I got with poring into it, and contriving how it might be built, with such and such rooms, to hold all the world if there should be another flood, and sometimes settling what pretty beasts should be saved, and what should not, for I would have no ugly or deformed beast in my pretty ark.  But this was only a piece of folly and vanity, that a little reflection might cure me of.  Foolish girl that I was! to suppose that any creature is really ugly, that has all its limbs contrived with heavenly wisdom, and was doubtless formed to some beautiful end, though a child cannot comprehend it.—­Doubtless a frog or a toad is not uglier in itself than a squirrel or a pretty green lizard; but we want understanding to see it.

[Here I must remind you, my dear miss Howe, that one of the young ladies smiled, and two or three were seen to titter, at this part of your narration, and you seemed, I thought, a little too angry for a girl of your sense and reading; but you will remember, my dear, that young heads are not always able to bear strange and unusual assertions; and if some elder person possibly, or some book which you have found, had not put it into your head, you would hardly have discovered by your own reflection, that a frog or a toad was equal in real loveliness to a frisking squirrel, or a pretty green lizard, as you called it; not remembering that at this very time you gave the lizard the name of pretty, and left it out to the frog—­so liable we all are to prejudices.  But you went on with your story.]