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“goose” was so nice, of the kind that seldom turn up? Was he telling her something? Emma didn’t think so. She figured she and Charles would go on for years, having geese by the fire and staying friends. That was fine with her. She was content to stay at Maer Hall with Elizabeth, playing the piano, reading, doing needlework, and taking care of their beloved mother, who was bed-ridden and very ill.
    Emma had been born into the carefree, happy, supportive Wedgwood family on May 2, 1808. She was the youngest. She had four brothers and three sisters (a fourth older sister had died as a baby)—Elizabeth, Josiah, Charlotte, Harry, Frank, Hensleigh, and Fanny. She was closest to Fanny, who was only two years older than she was. They were inseparable, spending almost every moment together from the time Emma was born. The family often spoke of them as if they were one person. They called them the Dovelies or Miss Salt and Miss Pepper.
    But Emma and Fanny were quite different. Fanny was short and not thought to be as pretty as Emma, though she was “most radiant in her person and brilliant in her colouring,” according to their Aunt Jessie. We can imagine rosy cheeks and bright eyes. She was a quiet, gentle, and good person, organized and industrious. She made lists all the time: lists of temperatures, words in different languages, sights seen on travels, chores to be done. Her father called her his little secretary; her mother’s nickname for her was Mrs. Pedigree. As she got older, people in the family thought she’d be a good match for her cousin Charles, also an organizer, a collector, and a list maker.
    On the other hand, Emma’s nickname was Little Miss Slip-Slop. She was disorganized, and a slob. But she was brilliant, learned easily, and when she liked something, she put her all into it. At only five, she started reading a favorite classic of the day, John Milton’s epic poem
Paradise Lost.
Telling the story later, some relatives said she read the whole thing, others said she started it and asked her mother to finish reading it to her. Either way, it certainly was not typical reading material for so young a child.
    Paradise
Lost
begins:
    Â 
    Of Man’s first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste
Brought death into the World, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden…
    Â 
    Paradise Lost
is the story of Adam and Eve’s disobedience and expulsion from the Garden of Eden. It explores fate, sin, heaven, and hell. (Charles also loved
Paradise Lost
—when he was older. He took a pocket-sized edition with him on his voyage and carried it in his jacket whenever he went ashore.)
    Emma’s large extended family loved both of “the little girls” (as they were called into their twenties), but Emma was a favorite. She was lively and high-spirited, yet had a serenity and a good nature that never seemed to get ruffled. She did not put up with nonsense, though, and she called things as she saw them. At ten, Emma wrote to her brother about a family she and Fanny were staying with: “I like the Coloes very except the youngest Louis who bothers one very much.”
    Both girls read voraciously, pulling book after book off the Maer library shelves. And, in the few hours of the morning set aside for lessons, they learned French, Italian, and German.Emma was good at everything she took up—languages, archery, skating, needlework, horseback riding—but her great talent was music. She played the piano, and although she didn’t work very hard at it—she played for only about an hour a day—she was so good that when she was older, she took lessons from the famous pianist and composer Frédéric Chopin. Her daughter Etty later said that Emma’s piano playing clearly reflected her character: She played with a fine, crisp touch, with intelligence and simplicity. She put vigor and spirit into her playing, but not sentimental