Dr. Maybright had eight children, and the sweetest and most attractive wife of any man in the neighborhood. He had a considerable country practice, was popular among his patients, and he and his were adored by the villagers, for the Maybrights had lived in the neighborhood of the little village of Tyrsley Dale for many generations. Dr. Maybright’s father had ministered to the temporal wants of the fathers and mothers of these very same villagers; and his father before him had also been in the profession, and had done his best for the inhabitants of Tyrsley Dale. It was little wonder, therefore, that the simple folks who lived in the little antiquated village on the borders of one of our great southern moors should have thought that to the Maybrights alone of the whole race of mankind had been given the art of healing.

For three or four generations the Maybright family had lived at Sleepy Hollow, which was the name of the square gray house, with its large vegetable garden, its sheltered clump of forest trees, and its cultivated flower and pleasure grounds. Here, in the old nursery, Polly had first opened her bright blue-black eyes; in this house Dr. Maybright’s eight children had lived happily, and enjoyed all the sunshine of the happiest of happy childhoods to the full. They were all high-spirited and fearless; each child had a certain amount of individuality. Perhaps Polly was the naughtiest[Pg 5] and the most peculiar; but her little spurt of insubordination speedily came to nothing, for mother, without ever being angry, or ever saying anything that could hurt Polly’s sensitive feelings, had always, with firm and gentle hand, put an extinguisher on them.

Mother was really, then, the life of the house. She was young to have such tall slips of daughters, and such little wild pickles of sons; and she was so pretty and so merry, and in such ecstasies over a picnic, and so childishly exultant when Helen, or Polly, or Katie, won a prize or did anything the least bit extraordinary, that she was voted the best playfellow in the world.