My name is Emma Hawksworth, and I am an instructor of the young. I am seventy-four years of age, but I do not look it, thanks to the elf who took a fancy to my mother, Maude Jenkins, when she danced and sang at the Covent Garden theatre. She had the sense to give me up to a childless couple, Arthur and Margaret Mowbry, who worked backstage until the fire of 1808. They left London then, and raised me in the more wholesome environment of Essex, not far from Epping Forest, one of the stronger of the elven enclaves in the south of England. My foster-mother was slight and fair, so it wasn't impossible for people to believe I was her child, so long as I kept my ears covered, but so near the Forest, I doubt many people paid all that much attention to the children who played on its borders. Still, for all that, I don't believe I was seen in a polite setting without a bonnet until after I married Reverend Samuel Hawksworth, God rest his soul. He was the youngest son of a younger son of an earl, and just recently granted the living in the parish of Loughton. We spoke one afternoon, after services, when I asked about the Romans. He soon became my teacher, sharing with my eager mind all the knowledge his education at Oxford had given to him. His family were appalled, of course, that he wished to wed one of his parishioners of modest background. There was a fearful row, but when I showed them he was telling the truth about my studies, his mother took me under her wing, and taught me how to go on in genteel society. I shall forever be grateful to her for that education, as well.<br/><br/>He has been gone nearly thirty years now, and I wonder sometimes if I wear black out of habit anymore, but it serves me well in the life I have made. Family ties grow thin over the decades, especially when the rest of the family ages and one does not. Without children of our union, it soon became easier all around that I went my own way. So, until coming to work for the Professor, I taught the children of the better families in England, whose parents were quite prepared to trust a distant connection of a noble family in a manner that Maude Jenkins' daughter would have found impossible to achieve. I have continued my own education in history, literature and languages and have discovered a modest talent for sorcery. Nothing to move the earth, but enough to light a candle or cast a spark on the unsuspecting hindquarters of a recalcitrant charge. Perhaps they could be more if I studied that ability more actively, but it would not do so long as I am employed as I have been, and that employment is what keeps body and soul together. My mother's sort of employment is not for me, but I have no quarrel with her memory. We shall see what studies shall claim my attention next, now that I am employed for an altogether different sort of gentleman. I have more students to teach, but thus far they seem more eager to learn, and, due to my employer's interest, I can, at last, discuss all that I have read and held to myself in silence since my husband went to his Maker.