"Beata is such a nice child," she says to Rosy's father, "and not one bit spoilt. I think it is sure to do Rosy good." But Rosy makes up her mind on the spot that she won't like Beata, and that her coming is on purpose to vex her, Rosy. "I wish I was back with auntie -- oh, I do, I do," she says, among her sobs. "Mamma doesn't love me. If she did, she wouldn't go and bring a nasty, horrible little girl to live with us. I hate her, and I shall always hate her -- nasty little thing!" Mary Louisa Molesworth (1836-1921), author of The Tapestry Room, tells of a girl's learning to recognize and rise above her limitations, in the entertaining and moving Rosy.

Author Biography

Mary Louisa Molesworth, n e Stewart (1839 - 1921) was an English writer of children's stories who wrote for children under the name of Mrs Molesworth. Her first novels, for adult readers, Lover and Husband (1869) to Cicely (1874), appeared under the pseudonym of Ennis Graham. Her name occasionally appears in print as M. L. S. Molesworth. She was born in Rotterdam, a daughter of Charles Augustus Stewart (1809-1873) who later became a rich merchant in Manchester and his wife Agnes Janet Wilson (1810-1883). Mary had three brothers and two sisters. She was educated in Great Britain and Switzerland: much of her girlhood was spent in Manchester. In 1861 she married Major R. Molesworth, nephew of Viscount Molesworth; they legally separated in 1879. Mrs Molesworth is best known as a writer of books for the young, such as Tell Me a Story (1875), Carrots (1876), The Cuckoo Clock (1877), The Tapestry Room (1879) and A Christmas Child (1880). She has been called "the Jane Austen of the nursery," while The Carved Lions (1895) "is probably her masterpiece." In the judgement of Roger Lancelyn Green: "Mary Louisa Molesworth typified late Victorian writing for girls. Aimed at girls too old for fairies and princesses but too young for Austen and the Bront s, books by Molesworth had their share of amusement, but they also had a good deal of moral instruction. The girls reading Molesworth would grow up to be mothers; thus, the books emphasized Victorian notions of duty and self-sacrifice."