family met with reverses in business, which made it necessary for her to look around her for means by which to help them and provide for her own necessities. Then her literary abilities and likings occurred to her as affording the most congenial and fitting occupation, and she at once entered upon that literary career which is even yet not quite forsaken by her. In common with most young writers, her pecuniary success was not at first remarkable, and she did not hesitate to increase her earnings during these first years of introduction to the literary world by her skill as needlewoman.
Her religious education had been in the Unitarian faith, and in devout religious thought her conscientious nature took its deepest pleasure, The first work she gave to the world, published in 1823, was an outgrowth of her fervid piety, and was entitled "Devotions for Young People,” while her next was a religious novel, entitled "Christmas Day.” In 1830, the British and Foreign Unitarian Association offered
