298 HAMILTON. the best seminary that Stirling afforded. In this new situa. tion she was accompanied by a young girl (Isabel Irvine), in the capacity of servant, to whom she became much attached, and whose instruction afterwards formed one of her voluntary studies. It was a master who presided over the school to which Elizabeth was introduced; a custom at that time prevalent in Scotland and Ireland; and, by a curious coincidence, a master of the same name, Manson, kept a school on a similar plan at Belfast, and there the sister of Elizabeth was one of his pupils. To writing, geography, and the use of the globes, she applied with assiduity, and with a degree of success that delighted her master, who, in a poem written forty years after, referred with generous pride to the period when she was h i s pupil. The following year added t o the list o f her studies and acquirements, music, drawing, and dancing. With such various avocations she experienced neither weariness nor disgust during her absence from her happy home; yet the return o f Saturday was always anticipated with ardour, for, excluding tasks and sermons o n the Sunday, un suited t o the taste and capacity o f childhood, religion assumed i n this family a most engaging aspect; and t o the example, still shore than the precept o f her excellent friends, Mrs. Hamilton always referred the formation o f her own moral and religious sentiments. Some time before this she had lost her mother; but the care and tenderness she experienced from her adopted parents, rendered the impression transient. I n her thirteenth year, she was re established a t home, where her kind aunt had engaged a young friend t o assist her progress i n music and drawing. About this time a n intimate o f the family took some pains t o shake the foundation o f her religious principles. Ridicule and arguments were employed—her curiosity was excited, and her inexperience perplexed—she could not easily believe that her aunt, wise and good, could b e the dupe o f error. To terminate this state o f doubt, which t o her ardent temper was insupportable, she took the prompt resolution o f reading the Scriptures b y stealth,
