Although a sad change has come over the ancient and historic village of Putney, and it has lost much of its quaint and picturesque environment since the destruction of the toll-house and the dear old bridge of 1729, with its score of narrow openings—at once the delight of artists and the curse of bargees—there is still a bit left which has escaped the hands of the Philistines. Unique and fair is the view from the magnificent, though aggressively modern, granite structure which now spans the river; and how many memories of the past are aroused! The grey old church of St. Mary's, Putney, and the massive tower of All Saints, Fulham, flank either end. This latter edifice, originally built as a chapel of ease to Wimbledon, is of great antiquity, and has been twice rebuilt, once in the reign of Henry VII. and again in 1836, when the grand old tower, which gives such a prominent feature to the landscape, was restored. On one side is the fine terrace of lofty houses known as The Cedars, with their wide breezy gardens overlooking the river, so short a time since the scene of many pleasant garden parties, when a well-known and popular author occupied one of these houses. Now, alas! they are all empty and deserted; cranes In a second the mind involuntarily travels back a few centuries, and pictures to itself the appearance of this same spot when the army under Cromwell made it their head quarters, while the King was a prisoner in Hampton Court; when forts were standing on each side, and a bridge of boats was constructed across the river, by order of the Earl of Essex, during the Civil War, on the retreat of the Royalists after the battle of Brentford. But the imaginary panorama fades, and your thoughts return to the present age as you drive a few hundred yards further on, and reach the top of a long terrace of small but artistically built red-brick Elizabethan houses, where in one which is semi-detached, the well-known writer, Miss Rosa Nouchette Carey, has made her home with her eldest Miss Rosa Nouchette Carey is tall, slender, and erect in carriage. She has large blue-grey eyes with long lashes, and her soft dark hair, in which a silver thread may be seen here and there, is parted smoothly over her brow, and plaited neatly round her head. She wears a black dress with brocaded velvet sleeves, and is cordial and peculiarly gentle in manner. "We have lived here six years," she says, in a low, There are other, not a few, historical recollections of Putney. Queen Elizabeth used often to stay at the house of Mr. Lacy, the clothier, who also entertained Charles I. It was the birthplace of Edward Gibbon, author of "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire"; of Thomas Cromwell, who was made Earl of Essex by Henry VIII.; and of Nicholas West, Bishop of Ely, who originally erected the small chantry chapel in the old church near the bridge; but though this has been removed from the east end of the south aisle to the east end of the north side, the old style has been carefully preserved. Many eminent people have lived here. Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, widow of Shelley, had her residence at the White House by the river; Leigh Hunt lived and died in the High Street. Among others, Theodore Hook, Douglas Jerrold, Henry Fuseli, the painter; Toland, the friend of Leibnitz; James Macpherson; and last, but not least, Mrs. Siddons. Putney also witnessed the death of William Pitt, Earl of Chatham. Rosa Nouchette Carey was born in London, near Old Bow Church, but she has only vague memories of the house and place. She was the youngest but one of a large family of five sisters and two brothers. Her father was a ship-broker, and afterwards had vessels of In this way the whole of "Nellie's Memories" was told verbally, when still in her teens, and was only written down seven years afterwards. "My mother was a strict disciplinarian and was very clever and practical," she continues. "As a girl I was singularly dreamy, and spent all my leisure time in reading and writing poetry; feeling the impossibility of combining my favourite pursuits with a useful, domestic life, and discouraged by my failures in this respect, I made a deliberate and, as it afterwards proved, a fruitless attempt to quench the longing to Later on the family moved to South Hampstead, where Rosa Carey's schooldays began, and it was whilst at school that she formed an enthusiastic friendship with Mathilde Blind, afterwards the clever translator of Marie Bashkirtseff's Journal, and author of "The Descent of Man," and other works. This friendship, which was a source of great interest to both girls, was only interrupted by a divergence of their religious opinions. Mathilde Blind was brought up in the most advanced school of modern freethought, but Rosa Carey, adhering to the simple faith of her childhood, could not follow her there, and the friends drifted apart, sorrowfully, but with warm affection on each side. The next change in her life was the death of her father, after which terrible bereavement the widowed mother and three daughters lived together, but the gradual breaking-up of the once large family had set in. After their mother's death, the youngest daughter's convictions led her to embrace a conventual life, and she entered the Anglican Sisterhood of St. Thomas of Canterbury. The death of their mother occurred on the same day which three years before had witnessed The launching of "Nellie's Memories" threatened at first to cause the young writer some disappointment. Quite unacquainted with any publishers, and without any previous introductions, she took the MSS. to Mr. Not to many girl-authors is it given that her first novel shall bring her name and fame, but this simple, domestic story of English home-life speedily became a great favourite. Though free from any mystery or dramatic incidents, the individuality of the characters, the pure wholesome tone, and the interest which is kept up to the end, caused this charming story to be widely known and to be re-issued in many editions up to the present date. The next venture was "Wee Wifie," which Miss Carey pronounces to have been a failure; but as that work has been quite lately demanded by the public, it is possible that she may have taken too modest a view of its merits. On being applied to for permission to bring it out again, she at first refused, thinking that it would not add to her literary reputation; but subsequently, however, she rewrote and lengthened it, though without altering the plot, and it has passed into a new edition. Her next five novels—entitled respectively "Barbara Heathcote's Trial," "Robert Ord's Atonement," "Wooed and Married," "Heriot's Choice," and "Queenie's Whim"—came out at intervals of two years between each other, and were followed by "Mary St. John." Then It is quite obvious to the readers of Miss Carey's works that she is fond of young people—she has, indeed, at the present time a regularly established class for young girls and servants over fifteen years of age, which had already been formed in connection with the Fulham Sunday School, in which she takes a great interest—and that the distinctive characteristic throughout all her books is a tendency to elevate to lofty aspirations, to noble ideas, and to purity of "My ambition has ever been," says the gentle author, "to try to do good and not harm by my works, and to write books which any mother can give a girl to read. I do not exactly form plots, I think of one character and circle round that. Of course, I like to meditate well on my characters before beginning to write, and I live so entirely in and with them when writing that I feel restless, and experience a sense of loss and blank when a book is finished, and I have to wait until another grows in my mind. I have sometimes rather regretted a tone of sadness running through some of my earlier stories, but they were tinged with many years of sorrow. Now I can write more cheerfully. Like many authors, I only work from breakfast to luncheon, sometimes at the table, more often with my blotting-pad on my knee before the fire, and I cannot do without plenty of air and exercise, and often walk round Putney Heath. More than twenty years ago I was introduced to Mrs. Henry Wood, who used often to come down to the old Jacobin House, of which I spoke just now. Our acquaintance ripened The long-standing friendship with Helen Marion Burnside—the well-known writer of many clever tales for children, booklets, verses, and songs—began when they were in their early womanhood. Eighteen years ago Miss Burnside became an inmate of Miss Carey's house, and ever since they have shared the same home, living in pleasant harmony and affection. Presently comes an invitation to join the family five o'clock tea-table. Glass doors in the drawing-room lead into the conservatory, whence issues the soft cooing of ring-doves. The pretty marqueterie cabinets disclose a set of Indian carved ivory chessmen and many quaint bits of china, whilst on a sofa, in solitary state, sits a knowing-looking little tame squirrel with a blue ribbon round its neck. After tea, on the arrival of some visitors, you are so lucky as to get a few minutes' private conversation with Miss Burnside, and you learn a few facts concerning your hostess that could never have been gleaned from one of such reticence and modesty as she. "I do not think," says Helen Marion Burnside, "that I have known any author who has to make her writing—the real work of her life—so secondary a matter as has Rosa Carey. Certainly no better words could be found to describe the sympathetic, gifted, and lofty-souled Rosa Nouchette Carey. |