Picture her sheltering her little sisters and
brother from the brutal wrath of a man whom no law restricted, and can
her repugnance to the laws made by men on these subjects be wondered
at? Only too rarely do the victims of such treatment rise to be
eloquent of their wrongs.
The frequent removals of her family left little chance of forming
friendships for the sad little Mary; but she can scarcely have been
exactly lonely with her small sisters and brothers, possibly a little
more positive loneliness or quiet would have been desirable. As she
grew older her father's passions increased, and often did she boldly
interpose to shield her mother from his drunken wrath, or waited
outside her room for the morning to break. So her childhood passed
into girlhood, her senses numbed by misery, till she had the good
fortune to make the acquaintance of a Mr. and Mrs. Clare, a clergyman
and his wife, who were kind to the friendless girl and soon found her
to have undeveloped good qualities. She spent much time with them, and
it was they who introduced her to Fanny Blood, whose friendship
henceforth proved one of the chief influences of her life; this it was
that first roused her intellectual faculty, and, with the gratitude of
a fine nature, she never after forgot where she first tasted the
delight of the fountain which transmutes even misery into the source
of work and poetry.
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