But Miles Standish was no coward and he set out on his expedition determined to fight when he must but not to run into needless dangers. A three days' march brought him to the Indian encampment, but it seemed as peaceful as the town that he had left. Women were at work in the fields and about the tents, but there were no braves in sight. After a short détour he discovered them, their bodies covered with war paint, seated about a fire, handing a smoking pipe from one to another. One of them caught the glint of sun on the Captain's armor and spoke to the others, and then two rose and came towards Standish. They spoke peacefully, saying that they wanted to be friends with the white men, and would like to trade skins and corn for knives and muskets and the mysterious powder the white men used in their "fire-tubes." Standish offered them blankets but refused to give them arms or powder. Then their manner changed very quickly, and pointing to the knives at their belts they began to tell the white men what they would do to their settlement unless they would come to terms. In the meantime the wary Captain had noted how the other Indians had left the fire and were creeping up towards him on all sides, fixing arrows to their bowstrings as they came, but pretending that they were only going back to their tents. He waited, like a tiger ready to spring, while the chief worked himself up into a passion with his threats. Suddenly the chief drew his knife and raised it high, giving the war-cry. At the same instant Standish sprang forward, and before the Indian's knife could fall he had plunged his own into the redman's breast. The chief fell, and instantly a storm of arrows swept about Standish and his men and the braves leaped forward, crying their wild war-whoops. The white men turned back to back, and, leveling their muskets, sent a deadly fire at the advancing braves. The latter, always frightened at this mysterious sight and sound, turned and fled, leaving their chief, Wattawamat, dead in front of Standish. Then the Captain cut off the head of the Indian and carried it back with him to Plymouth, where it was stuck on a pike from the roof of the fort as a warning to other warring redmen. Such acts were part of the customs of those times, and the elders of Plymouth approved of the Captain's deed, but one elder, named John Robinson, who was the religious leader of them all, cried out as he passed the fort, "Oh, that he had converted some before he killed any!"

If Miles Standish had flared up in anger when John Alden first told him the result of his suit of Priscilla that anger dropped as quickly as it rose. The Captain had many other matters to think about, what with the constant fear of attack from restless Indians, and he was away from Plymouth almost as much as he was there. So the lovers lost the feeling that they had not been fair to him, and let it be known through Plymouth that they were to marry.

Meanwhile the Pilgrim village was prospering. Food was plentiful, for the first harvest had been good, and the hunters had brought in deer and the fishing-boats returned well-laden from the sea. Therefore the Governor ordered a day of thanksgiving late in the autumn, and when that day came the people went to the fortress-church on the hill and gave thanks to God that He had allowed them to endure and prosper in their new home. Later in the day they feasted, and never had Plymouth seen such a plentiful repast. Word of the feast had been sent to some of the neighboring Indians and ninety of them came and sat about the board with the white men. That was the beginning of our Thanksgiving Day.

John Alden was busy building a new house for his bride. He could build better now than the settlers had been able to do when they faced that first winter. He chose his ground with care, and built a substantial home, covering the roof with rushes, and filling the latticed windows with panes of oiled paper, which let the light come through but not the wind or rain. He dug a well and planted an orchard at the rear of the house, and when the place was finished it was one of the finest in Plymouth. In the spring Priscilla and John were married, their wedding being one of the earliest in the colony, and Priscilla being the first of the girls who had sailed on the Mayflower to change her name.

History does not tell us a great deal about this girl of the Pilgrims, but we do know how much courage and faith and constancy was required of the first settlers of New England. We picture Priscilla as the daughter of such people, devout, simple, and from force of the rude life about her growing more and more self-reliant from the day when Mary Chilton and she first set foot on Plymouth Rock. History does not tell us of Priscilla's wooing, but the romantic story has been so wonderfully put in poetry by Longfellow that when we hear Priscilla Alden mentioned we think first of all of "The Courtship of Miles Standish." It is a story which ought to be true, if it is not.

We know that Captain Standish and John Alden were friends at a later time, for when the Captain married his second wife he built his house over on Duxbury Hill, near where John Alden's stood, and his son married the daughter of John and Priscilla. So the blunt, brave Captain did not die of a broken heart.

Such is the story of this girl of the Pilgrims and of the brave days when the foundation stones of our land were being laid.

IX

Catherine the Great

The Girl of Stettin: 1729-1796

"Come with me," whispered a small boy to a little girl who was standing, looking rather lonely, in one of the long corridors of a house in the North German town of Eutin.

"Come along," he added, still in a whisper, and tiptoed down the hall. The girl followed and saw him stop at a doorway and peep into the room beyond. Apparently satisfied he entered, and she, her curiosity roused, went into the room after him.

It was a bare apartment, with walls once white but now gray, small barred windows, a ceiling supported by rough timbers, and a wooden floor, uneven and uncarpeted. On a bench at one end stood a large round tub of water and from pegs in the wall hung caps and coats. It was the place where the few soldiers who were supposed to guard the house lounged when off duty, and used as a dressing-room. It was unoccupied now, and the boy, still on tiptoe, ran across the bare floor to the tub of water.

Pulling some paper from his pocket the boy tore it into many pieces and dropped three or four of them into the water. Then taking a stick that lay on a bench he began to poke the papers. The girl stood beside him. "See, Figchen," he whispered, "those are boats, sailing on the great Baltic Sea. This one's heavy laden, see how she rocks. That's her port over on the other side. Here comes a storm," and he stirred the water with his stick and sent the paper boats tossing to the rim.

"That's not much of a pond, Peter," said the girl disdainfully. "We've one in Stettin twice that big with live fish in it, and when we want to have a storm we throw a stone into it."

But the little boy was too busy with his boats to listen to her. He threw the rest of the papers into the tub and leaned so far over its edge that he could see his fat cheeks and blue eyes mirrored in it.

"Look, Figchen, look," he cried excitedly, "there's a whole war-fleet going over to the other side."

The girl, forgetting her disdain, bent over the rim and began to blow down at the water.

Before they knew it there were quick steps on the floor behind them and a man had seized Peter by the collar and jerked him back from the tub. "Didn't I tell you not to go near that water again?" the man demanded, his face and voice showing his anger. "What do you think you are? You're a soldier, and a soldier's first duty is to obey orders. For this you go to your room and do without dinner to-day."

The little boy stood with his back to the wall, looking much frightened. "Oh, Herr Brummer——" he began.

"Not a word," ordered the man. "You've heard what I've said."

The girl had looked on in amazement. Now she took a step forward. "You're a simpleton, Peter Ulric," she said. "Afraid of your tutor. Why don't you send him away?"

Herr Brummer turned as if he had noticed the girl for the first time. He bowed, smiling sarcastically. "Ach so; it is the Princess Sophia of Zerbst who speaks? And you would advise Prince Peter of Holstein to disobey his tutor?"

The girl's eyes met the man's defiantly. "I would," she answered. "At home, in Stettin——"

"Well, we're not in Stettin," broke in the man, turning back. "Go to your room, boy, and stay there till I come for you. And if I find you playing here again I'll make you kneel on dried peas till you can't stand up."

The boy, used to being treated in such fashion, went out of the guard-room, his face surly and white.

"As for you," said Herr Brummer to the girl, "the sooner you go home the better. You'll find Peter Ulric a dull playmate." With that he turned on his heel and followed the little Prince of Holstein, and heir to the thrones of Russia and Sweden, from the room.

Figchen, which was the nickname given to the Princess Sophia of Zerbst, waited a moment and then went out into the garden at the rear of the house. She was used to being left to her own devices, but in her home town she could go out into the city squares and play with other children, and here in Eutin she had been forbidden to leave the house and its garden. She wished she were at home again, and could not understand why her mother was so fond of traveling about to visit her relations. She thought this particular court of Holstein the dullest of them all, and little Peter Ulric the stupidest boy she had ever met. He was stupid, there was no doubt of that, but no one had ever cared enough about him to try and make him more intelligent.

Children of rank had a dull time at the courts of the little German duchies in those days. The Princess Figchen was better off than Peter Ulric because she was a girl and did not have to be moulded into a soldier, but she had little enough fun. Her father was very fond of her, but he was a general in the army of Frederick the Great of Prussia, and away from home most of the time. Her mother was vain and capricious. The family were poor and only used the left wing of their palace at Stettin. Here Figchen had three rooms, and her bedroom was close to the bell-tower of the church, so that she was wakened early every morning by a deafening peal of bells. She played in the streets with the town children, none of whom called her "Your Highness," and the children's mothers treated her just like any other little girl.

Most of her time, however, she spent with her governess and teachers. French was the fashion then and children were taught the language, the manners, and the gallantry of Paris. The Princess was bright but wilful, if she was interested she would learn quickly, if she was not the teachers might storm and she would only laugh at them. Her governess told her that her chin was too sharp, and that by sticking it out she was always knocking against everybody she came across. Figchen laughed and stuck her chin farther out. But in her own way she was fond of her French governess and read a good many French books with her.

Even though Figchen did like the girls of her own town better than those she met elsewhere, her mother, who was restless and eager for excitement, found Stettin very dull, and was continually traveling. She had relatives in all the little German cities, and liked to visit them at Hamburg, Brunswick, or Berlin, and hear the latest gossip. So Figchen met most of the Grand Dukes and Duchesses of her time, and was presented at Berlin to the powerful young Frederick the Great, who was just beginning his remarkable career. This visiting also gave her mother a chance to see the young Princes who might be eligible for her daughter's hand, for it was the first concern of a young German Princess to find a husband who would some day wear a crown. But Figchen herself was not interested in these boys with long titles to their names. Most of them seemed very stupid to her, much like Peter Ulric of Holstein, taught to be a soldier instead of being taught to be a gentleman.

Then, suddenly, when this little Princess of Zerbst was twelve years old, strange events occurred in Europe. To the northwest of her home lay the mighty country of Russia, still almost savage, but of enormous size and of unknown strength. Only a short time before Peter the Great had been Czar of Russia and had built up a great Empire that overshadowed the little German duchies that lay along its borders. One of Peter's daughters had married the Duke of Holstein, and been the mother of the small Peter Ulric. Another was the Princess Elizabeth, who had not married. Peter the Czar had a half-brother Ivan, and Ivan's granddaughter was ruling as regent in Russia for her little son named Ivan. Then on December 9, 1741, the Princess Elizabeth, filled with her great father's ambition, suddenly seized the throne, and threw the regent and the little Czar Ivan into prison. The child's reign ended, and the unscrupulous woman took the crown as the Empress Elizabeth. She was strong and could hold it and that was all that counted in Russia then. The Empress looked about for an heir and her eyes lighted on Peter Ulric, the son of her sister. The regent in prison had always called him "the little devil," because she was afraid he might some day set aside her own Ivan. "The little devil" disappeared from his home and reappeared at St. Petersburg, and all the world learned that Elizabeth had proclaimed him the Grand Duke Peter, her adopted son and heir to the crown she wore. Figchen heard the news and wondered how such a stupid boy could ever be Czar of Russia.

The Empress Elizabeth, like a fairy godmother, waved her wand again, and this time it rested on Figchen herself. The Empress ordered the little girl's portrait sent to her, despatched presents to her and to her father and mother, and finally invited the Princess of Zerbst to visit her in Moscow and to bring her daughter with her. The ambitious mother knew what that meant. The Empress meant to marry Figchen to the Grand Duke Peter. That was a more dazzling destiny than she had ever dreamed of.

Mother and daughter started out for Moscow. They were poor and did not need many boxes to carry their wardrobe. Traveling was hard, and, it being January, the cold was so bitter they had to wear masks to protect their faces. There were no hotels and they had to stay at posting-houses, poor shacks where the landlord's family and his animals often slept under the same roof. There was no snow but the four carriages in which the Princess and her suite traveled were so heavy they required twenty-four horses to pull them. Sledges were fastened to the backs of the carriages to be used later, and these made their progress slower.

But when they crossed the frontier to Russia everything changed. Troops met them, with flags flying and drums beating. Gallant officers joined them and paid them compliments. Castles opened to them and the ladies, shining with diamonds and silks, quite overwhelmed the simple German Princess and her daughter. When they reached St. Petersburg ladies of the court were ready to stock their wardrobes with magnificent toilettes. The travelers were glad of that, for they knew their own clothes would look shabby enough in the presence of an Empress who was said to have 15,000 silk dresses and no less than 5,000 pairs of shoes.

When they left St. Petersburg on their way to Moscow the Princess and Figchen traveled in a magnificent sleigh, built like a great couch with curtains of scarlet and gold, and lined inside with sable. The ladies reclined on what was really a feather bed, with coverings of satin and fur, and supported on springs so that the sleigh could pass over the roughest road without disturbing the passengers inside. Here they lay and looked out through the windows at the snowy barren country all about them. Figchen was impressed. Used as she was to the simplicity of the little German duchy, she could not help wondering at so much extravagance and luxury, or thrilling at the sight of the great Cossack soldiers and the Imperial grenadiers who rode as her escort. So she began to realize the might of this great northern country.

The Empress Elizabeth welcomed them warmly at her palace in Moscow, and at once Figchen found herself surrounded by fawning courtiers, ambitious women, and all the pomp and ceremony of a court. Generals and statesmen struggled to kiss her hand, ladies to compliment her on her complexion, for they all knew now that the little German maiden was to marry their Grand Duke Peter. She knew it now also, but although she remembered how stupid and timid he had seemed at Eutin, she made no objection, because her eyes were dazzled with the wonders of this new life.

Peter Ulric had not improved since Figchen had last seen him. Herr Brummer's iron hand no longer held him in check, and he had run absolutely wild. His health was ruined, he was dissipated beyond belief, cowardly, and as ignorant as his poorest soldier. He kissed Figchen's hand, and said he was glad to see her, and then left her, to drink himself stupid with vodka. The marriage promised to be about as tragic as it well could be. But Figchen had more interesting things to think about than Peter Ulric. She had to study a new religion, so that she might enter the Russian Church, she had to have prepared a great trousseau, and she had to try and learn in a short time some of the things she had refused to learn at Stettin. Then she fell ill, and was sick for days, while her mother and the Russian doctors struggled as to the best way to cure her. The doctors advised blood-letting but the Princess was very much opposed to it. They agreed to refer the matter to the Empress, and found that she had gone on a five days' visit to a distant convent where she had shut herself up in one of her strange spasms of religion. Finally she appeared and ordered the blood-letting. Poor Figchen suffered, but recovered. When she regained consciousness she found herself in the arms of the Empress, and in her hand a gift of a diamond necklace and a pair of earrings worth 20,000 roubles. Figchen began to realize that the Empress Elizabeth was a very singular person.

As soon as she was well again she finished making ready to enter the Russian Church, and in June, 1744, when she was fifteen, she made her new vows. She was a handsome girl, and her youth, beauty, and modest manner made a charming picture as she entered the imperial chapel. She wore what was called an "Adrienne" robe of red cloth of Tours, laced with cords of silver, and about her unpowdered hair was bound a simple white fillet. Her voice did not tremble and she did not forget a word of the long Russian creed. Then the new name of Catherine was added to her other names and it was announced that henceforth that would be her official title. The next day she was betrothed to Peter Ulric.

Peter's health was so bad that the wedding had to be put off from one date to another, but finally, in August, 1745, when Peter was seventeen, and Catherine sixteen, they were married with the greatest pomp and ceremony. Figchen became a Grand Duchess and wife to the next Czar of Russia, and her mother went home to Stettin and left the girl, surrounded by her own court, to fight her own battles.

No one had ever cared very much for Figchen, her father and mother had let her grow up as she would, and the only thing that was asked of her was that she should marry the prince they might pick out for her. That was her idea of duty, and that she had done. She had seen very little kindness, or consideration for others, or happy home life in any of the German courts where she spent her childhood. She had seen men trained to be soldiers and gamblers and drunkards, and women who were vain and spiteful and ambitious. In Russia she found things even worse than they had been at home. The Empress was a tyrant who had put the rightful Czar, a little boy, and his mother, in a distant prison, and planned to keep them there all their lives. Figchen's husband cared nothing for her, and soon appeared to have forgotten that she existed. If she had disliked him when he was a boy she despised him now that he was a young man. All around her were conspirators, and slanderers, and spies. There seemed only one thing left to her, ambition, tremendous ambition, such as had made Peter the Great and Elizabeth mighty conquerors and rulers of Russia. So, cut off from all other dreams, Catherine began to dream of that, and, as time went on, she made plans for the future.

Strange to say, although Figchen had always seemed a very quiet, docile girl, Catherine proved a very strong, determined woman. She kept her eye on what was happening in Russia, and she laid her plans. Peter had showed he cared nothing for her, and she cared nothing for him. More than that she knew that he would make the worst possible Emperor of Russia, and she thought she knew some one who would grace the throne much better.

The Empress Elizabeth died at a time when the Grand Duke Peter was away from the capital. He heard the news and started for St. Petersburg, but had not gone far when couriers brought him tidings that Catherine had seized the throne, proclaimed herself Czarina, and meant to rule alone. So she had. Dressed in the uniform of a general she had appeared before the troops, and announced that she was their new commander. Those rough soldiers knew that she was strong and that Peter was weak, and they put the care of their country in her hands. So the Empress Catherine II succeeded the Empress Elizabeth.

Peter, amazed, indignant, terrified, had no more chance now than he had had in the guard-room when Herr Brummer found him sailing boats. He was only a pawn. But as long as he lived he might make trouble. Therefore one night conspirators seized him and assassinated him, just as had often been done to Russian rulers before. History does not say if Catherine knew of the conspiracy in advance, but does say that she shed few tears over his fate.

Events proved that Catherine knew her strength. She became one of the great sovereigns of Europe, a far-seeing statesman, a brilliant commander of her armies. She was relentless, but she was fearless as well, and a century which had given the title of Great to Peter the First, and to the warrior Frederick of Prussia, paid the same tribute to her. She had only been taught the value of power in her girlhood, and that was all she came to care for later. The wonder of it is that the little Figchen who used to play with the town children in the streets of Stettin should have become the masterful Catherine the Great.

X

Fanny Burney

The Girl of London: 1752-1840

A girl sat at a desk in a small third-story room of Dr. Charles Burney's house in London, writing as rapidly as her quill-pen could travel over the paper. It was a December afternoon, and the light was not very bright, so that she had to lean far forward until the end of her nose almost touched the tip of her pen. Now and then a smile would cross her lips or she would stop a moment to reread a sentence or two and nod her head, but for the most part she kept steadily on, very much in earnest in what she was doing. On one corner of the desk lay a pile of finished manuscript, showing that she must have been at this work for many days. As a matter of fact she had come up to this small spare room every afternoon for a month and written until it was too dark for her to see.

Presently another girl came tiptoeing up the stairs, paused a moment at the door, and then stole quietly into the room. Without a word she crossed over to an old sofa on the other side of the room, and sat down upon it. The writer went on driving her quill-pen across the paper. Some five minutes later the quill stuck and sent a shower of ink-blots in all directions. "There, my pen's stubbed its toe again," said the writer, sitting up straight. "I'd better let it rest itself a while."

"Oh, Fanny," exclaimed the girl on the sofa, "do tell me what's happening to dear Caroline Evelyn now."

The authoress laid down her pen and tilted back in her chair. "The funniest things have been happening to her lately, Susan. I laughed until I cried. A young man named Lord Farringfield fell in love with her. He was very good-looking, with light curly hair, and she thought she liked him very much. He made her an offer of marriage in her father's garden, when suddenly a wind came up and blew off his wig. He looked so funny without any hair that all she could think of to say was to offer him her handkerchief to cover his head, and that put him out so that he jumped up from his knees and stalked away. Later the gardener found the wig on the bough of an apple tree, but Caroline didn't dare send it to its owner and kept it on a little stand in her room to remind her of her first offer of marriage. Let me read it to you."

"Oh, do, Fanny," urged the younger sister.

The writer delved into the pile of papers and pulled out several. Then, with a preliminary chuckle, she began to read. At first she went smoothly enough, but after a while she began to laugh, and finally she had to stop and dry her eyes with a handkerchief. "He did look so ridiculous," she said. "Can't you see him there, saying, 'Oh, my adorable Caroline, wilt thou——' when whist! he claps his hands to his head, but his beautiful curls have gone?"

"Indeed I can," replied Susan, who was hugging herself and rocking on the sofa with appreciation. "However can you do it, Fanny? It seems to me each person in the story is funnier than the last."

"They don't start out funny," said the writer, "but after they've talked a little or walked about they begin to do funny things. Of course the hero and Caroline herself are quite serious. It's getting to be a big book. Just look." She opened a drawer of the desk and produced another pile of papers and laid them on top of those already on the table. "It's almost a full-sized novel now."

"It's beautiful," said Susan. "I don't know any book that's ever made me laugh and cry so much."

"Do you really think it's good?" Fanny turned about so as to face her sister. "I'll tell you something, Susan. I just had to write it. I couldn't help doing it, no matter how hard I tried."

"It's wonderful," continued the admiring Susan.

"But you mustn't tell. You must never tell," besought Fanny. "I'd be so ashamed of myself, and just think what father might have to say to me about it!" She swung about to the desk and rested her head in her hands as though to contemplate the overwhelming things Dr. Burney might be called upon to say should he discover her offense. Then impulsively she stretched out her hands and clasped the manuscript. "Oh, I love it, I love every line I've written there."

Some one else had been climbing the flight of stairs to the third story, and now came into the room. It was Mrs. Burney, the stepmother of Fanny and Susan. She went over to the desk and looked at the pile of written sheets before Fanny could turn them over or hide them in the drawer. "So this is what you've been about, is it?" said she, not unkindly, but rather in an amused tone. "I've wondered where you went when you stole away from the rest of the family every afternoon. Your father said you wanted to study, but I told him I didn't approve of young ladies creeping out of sight to pore over books. So you've been writing a story surreptitiously? Take my word for it, Fanny, writing books has gone out of fashion."

"I know it," said Fanny, "but I couldn't help it. I'd much rather do this than practice on the harpsichord."

"But music is a polite accomplishment, my dear, whereas scribbling is quite the reverse."

"Fanny's isn't scribbling," protested Susan. "It's wonderful. It really is, mother. It's as good as anything down-stairs in father's library. Let her read some of it to you."

"No, thank you, Susan. I can understand some parents letting their children run wild and become novel-writers, but not Dr. Burney. You must remember you have a position in society to think about, my dears."

"I know," agreed Fanny guiltily.

"What would the world say," continued Mrs. Burney, "if it should learn that Dr. Burney's daughter Frances had composed a novel!"

"Father writes books," suggested Susan.

"Yes, but on the subject of music. It's quite another thing to compose a treatise showing learning. Fanny's writings, if I mistake not, are merely idle inventions, the stories of events that never happened to people who never lived."

"Yes, they are," agreed the ashamed Fanny. "I make them up out of my head as I go along."

"But they're quite as interesting as the things that do happen to real people," argued the devoted Susan. "More interesting, I think. I don't know any real person who interests me as much as Caroline in Fanny's story."

Mrs. Burney smiled. She had no wish to be harsh, but she had very decided ideas as to what was and what was not proper for young ladies to do. She was a bustling, sociable person, and she considered that Fanny was altogether too shy and reserved. She wanted to make her more like her other sisters, Esther and Charlotte, both of whom were very popular with the many visitors who came to see the celebrated Dr. Burney.

"It's for your own good," she said finally. "I shan't tell your father, but I know he wouldn't approve of your spending your time in this way."

"I know," said Fanny slowly. "I know what people think of a young woman who writes. I oughtn't to do it, but the temptation was too strong for me. I'll give it up, mother, and not steal off here by myself. I'll try to be more the way you and father want me."

"That's the right spirit, Fanny. You know we're all very proud of you anyway." Stooping down Mrs. Burney kissed her stepdaughter, and then left the sisters alone.

For some time there was silence while Fanny stared at the big pile of closely written sheets which lay in front of her and Susan looked at her sister. Then with a sigh the older girl rose and gathered the papers in her arms. "Mother is right. It is wrong of me," said she. "Would you mind, Susan, coming down into the yard with me?"

"What are you going to do, Fanny?" asked her sister in alarm.

"I've made up my mind what's best to be done, and I'm going to do it. Come down-stairs, please."

Fanny led the way with the papers, and Susan came after her. They went down the three flights, through a hall, and out into a paved court at the rear of the house.

"Will you watch them a minute, please?" said Fanny, as she laid the papers on the bricks.

She went indoors and soon was back again, with some sticks of wood, some straw, and a lighted taper in her hand. She laid the sticks together, stuffed some straw in among them, and then placed the pile of papers on top.

"Oh, Fanny," cried her sister, "you're not going to burn up all the story? Oh, poor Caroline! Don't do it, Fanny; think how long it took to write it and how good it is!"

"I must," said Fanny, very decidedly.

"Oh, please, please don't! It's almost like murder. It's a shame, Fanny, it is, it's a terrible shame!"

"It hurts me most," said Fanny, "but it's the only way to settle Caroline once for all." With a very grim face she held the taper to the straw until it caught fire. In a moment a page of the manuscript was curling up in flames.

"Oh, Fanny, Fanny!" cried Susan, tears coming to her eyes. She looked beseechingly at her sister, but the latter's purpose was inflexible. A few minutes more and the papers were all burning brightly.

The two girls stood there until the fire had burnt itself out, and then turned to each other. Tears stood in Fanny's eyes and also in those of the sympathetic Susan. "Poor Caroline Evelyn," sighed Fanny, "I'm going to be ever and ever so lonely without her."

Susan slipped her arm about her sister's waist, and they went indoors to get ready for supper. The young authoress was very quiet when the family met at table a little later, and had very little appetite, but the family were quite used to Fanny's reserve, and none of them thought anything about it except the faithful Susan, who threw tender reproachful glances across the table at Fanny from time to time.

The father of these girls, Dr. Charles Burney, was the fashionable music-master of the day in London. He had made a great success, and had so many pupils that he had to begin his round of lessons as early as seven o'clock in the morning, and often was not through with them until eleven at night. Many a time he dined in a hackney coach on sandwiches and a glass of sherry and water as he drove from one house to another. Among his friends were all sorts of people, musicians, actors, scholars, famous beaux and belles, and as he was most hospitable his children grew up familiar with many different types of men and women of the great world of London. The other girls and the boys were like their father in taking part in all the entertainments that went on, but Fanny, the second daughter, although she was admitted to be very bright, was unusually quiet and retiring. Her teacher called her "the silent, observant Miss Fanny," and that described her well, because she was always watching the people about her, and remembering their peculiar tricks of manner and speech.

But she had a mind of her own and could speak up on occasion. When she was ten years old her father lived in a house on Poland Street, next door to a wig-maker, who supplied perukes to the judges and lawyers of London. The children of the wig-maker and the Burney children played together in a little garden behind the former's house, and one day they went into the wig-maker's house, and each put on one of the fine wigs he had for sale. Then they began to play in the garden until one of the perukes, which was very fine and worth over ten guineas, fell into a tub of water and lost all its curl. The wig-maker came out, fished out the peruke, and declared it was entirely ruined. With that he spoke very angrily to his children, when suddenly the quiet Fanny stepped forth, and with the manner of an old lady said, "What is the use of talking so much about an accident? The wig is wet, to be sure, and it was a very good wig, but words will do no good, because, sir, what's done can't be undone." The wig-maker listened in great surprise, and then made Fanny a little bow. "Miss Burney speaks with the wisdom of ages," he said, and without another word went into the house.

Among all their father's friends the Burney children thought there was no one quite so amusing as the great actor David Garrick. He would drop in at all hours of the day, and always playing some new part. Sometimes he would sit still and listen to Dr. Burney talk on the history of music, and gradually his face and manner would change until the children could scarcely believe he was the same man who had entered the room a short time before. He would seem to become an old crafty man before their very eyes, or a villain from the slums of London, or a Spanish grandee for the first time in England. Sometimes he would appear at the house in disguise and give a new name to the maid and appear in the dining-room as a stranger to the family. Once he arrived at the door in an old, ill-fitting wig and shabby clothes and the servant refused to admit him, taking him for a beggar. "Egad, child," he said to the maid, "you don't guess whom you have the happiness to see! Do you know that I am one of the first geniuses of the age? You would faint away upon the spot if you could only imagine who I am!" The maid, very much startled, let him pass, and he shambled into the house, again pretending to be a beggar. The children were always delighted to have him come, and Fanny in particular, because she had a talent for mimicking people herself, and she liked to study him. He often sent them tickets to see him act at Drury Lane Theatre, and there they saw their friend play the greatest rôles of the English stage as no actor had ever played them before.

Fanny's particular friend was a Mr. Samuel Crisp, a curious man who had once been very popular in London, but had retired to a lonely life in the country at a place called Chesington Hall. He was very fond of the Burneys and often had them visit him at his country home. Fanny called him "her dearest daddy," and loved to walk across the meadows with him, and tell him of the curious people she had met at her father's house in town. He understood her better than any one else, and it was to him that she confided the story of how she had burned the manuscript of her novel. "It was very hard, Daddy," she said. "I know I oughtn't to want to keep on scribbling, but somehow I can't help it. I think of so many things, and I want to make them real, and the only way is to put them down on paper. People tell me young ladies shouldn't be writing stories, that it's not genteel, but how can I help myself?"

"You can tell them to me, Fanny, and no one shall ever know you made them up."

So she unburdened her heart to him, told him of her friend Caroline Evelyn, the dear child of her brain, of the suitors that young lady had, and how she treated them, and of her elopement to Gretna Green, and of the funny people she was continually meeting. Mr. Crisp listened and smiled, surprised at the girl's powers of description and humor. Finally he said to her, "It seems to me, Fanny, that young lady's career is more interesting to you than your own."

"So it is," she answered. "I think more about her than about any one else."

"Then," said Mr. Crisp, "in spite of your mother's good advice and your own judgment I predict that Caroline rises in time from the flames."

"Do you think so, Daddy? Oh, if she only might! It's well there's no paper and ink here or I'd begin her over again right on the spot."

Mr. Crisp was right in his prediction. That summer the Burneys went to the little town of King's Lynn, where Fanny had been born. There Fanny shut herself up in a summer-house which was called "The Cabin," and began to rewrite her book. She seized upon every scrap of white paper that she could find and bore it off with her. She worked secretly, inventing numberless excuses for the hours she spent by herself. Gradually the story took shape again, changed in many ways from its first telling, and with the heroine rechristened Evelina.

Meantime Dr. Burney had started to prepare his great History of Music, and asked the help of his daughters to copy it for him. Fanny wrote the best hand and was the most reliable, so her father made her his chief secretary, and day after day she worked with him, having to postpone her own book from week to week. But each time she came back to it more ardently and each time her pen flew faster as she sat at her table in the little summer-house. At last she told Susan about it, and Susan was delighted, and when Fanny read some of it to her she declared that it was a thousand times better than the story of Caroline had been.

When her father's History of Music appeared in print it made a great success, and this stirred the youthful Fanny with the desire to see what London would think of "Evelina." She was determined, however, to keep its authorship unknown, and so she carefully recopied the manuscript in an assumed handwriting in order that no publisher or printer who had seen her handwriting in any of the manuscripts she had copied for her father should recognize the same hand in this. But "Evelina" had grown to be a very long novel, and by the time she had copied out two volumes of it she grew tired, and so she wrote a letter, without any signature, to a publisher, offering to send him the completed part of her novel at once, and the rest of it during the next year. This publisher replied that he would not consider the book unless he were told the author's name. Fanny showed the letter to Susan, and they talked it over, but decided that she ought not to send her name. She then wrote to another publisher, making the same offer as she had made to the first. He said he would like to see the manuscript. Thereupon Fanny decided to take her brother Charles into the secret and have him carry the work to the publisher. Charles agreed, and Fanny and Susan muffled him up in a greatcoat so that he looked much older than he was, and sent him off. He was not recognized, and when he called later for an answer he was told that the publisher was pleased with the book, but could not agree to print it until he should receive the whole story. That discouraged Fanny, and she let the book lie by for some time, but finally plucked up courage, and copied out the third volume.

In the meantime Fanny began to wonder if it would be fair for her to publish a novel without telling her father, and she decided she ought to go to him. She caught him just as he was leaving home on a trip, and said, with many blushes and much confusion, that she had written a little story and wanted to have it printed without giving her name. She added that she would not bother him with the manuscript in any way and begged that he wouldn't ask to see it. The Doctor was very much amused as well as surprised, and he told her to go ahead and see what would come of the story.

Better satisfied now that she had her father's consent Fanny sent the third volume to the publisher, who accepted the book and paid her twenty pounds for it.

At length "Evelina" was published. The first Fanny knew of it was when her stepmother opened a paper one morning at the breakfast table and read aloud an advertisement announcing the appearance of a new novel entitled "Evelina; or, A Young Lady's Entrance into the World." Susan smiled across the table at Fanny, and Charles winked at her, but she sat very still, her cheeks a fiery red. They did not give her secret away to the rest of the family, nor mention who the author was to any of their friends. Shortly afterward Fanny was ill and went out to Chesington to recuperate. She took the three volumes of "Evelina" with her, and read them aloud to Mr. Crisp, who pretended that he had no idea who the author might be and listened with the most flattering interest to chapter after chapter. "It reminds me of something," he said one day.

"And what may that be, dear Daddy?" she asked.

"I can't think, but it's prodigiously finer than what I'm trying to recall," he answered.

By the time she returned home all London was talking about the new novel and wondering as to the author. Wherever Dr. Burney went he found people discussing the same subject. The great Dr. Samuel Johnson declared that it was uncommonly fine, and the Doctor was the accepted judge of all literary matters. Like all the others he was sure that the writer was a man, and made many guesses as to which of the lights of London it might be, but although one man after another was credited with the honor of having written it each had to decline the satisfaction. Sir Joshua Reynolds declared he would give fifty pounds to know the author and meant to find him, and Sheridan vowed he must get the clever man, whoever he was, to write him a play.

In the meantime Fanny and Susan were enjoying the mystery tremendously. It was very delightful to hear all the visitors at their house talking of "Evelina" without the faintest notion that the author was sitting there listening to all they had to say. But the time came when Dr. Burney learned the secret, and his pride in Fanny's accomplishment could not keep him silent. He told the story to several of his friends and they, very much amazed, passed it on to others. Then Mrs. Thrale, a friend of the Burneys, gave a dinner, and told her guests that they should have the pleasure of meeting the author of "Evelina" there. When they came they were presented to the shy, quiet young woman whom they had often seen at Dr. Burney's house. She was overwhelmed with congratulations, and when the party came to an end Sir Joshua Reynolds, with a most courtly bow, bent over her hand, and hoped that he might shortly have the pleasure of entertaining her at his home in Leicester Square. When she went home Fanny said to Susan, "The joke of it is that the people spoke as if they were afraid of me, instead of my being very much afraid of them."

"Evelina" made Fanny Burney famous. She became a well-known figure in London life, and wrote other novels, "Cecilia, "Camilla," and "The Wanderer." She wrote a life of Dr. Burney, and she kept many diaries, all of which were filled with witty and humorous descriptions of the people of her age. In time she was appointed a Lady in Waiting to Queen Charlotte, wife of George III, and took a prominent part at court. Later she married the French Chevalier D'Arblay, and went with him to France, where she had many exciting adventures during the Reign of Terror. She afterward described these adventures in her diary and it gives a most interesting account of those thrilling times.

So it was that "the silent, observant Miss Fanny" became one of the great figures of England at the close of the eighteenth century, and it was the fact that she could not give up her love of writing and had to tell the story of her heroine Evelina that first brought her to the notice of the world and made her famous.