She attended Newnham College, Cambridge and while there began a lifelong friendship with Jane Ellen Harrison.

[1] She was one of a number of writers for the women-only column called "Wares of Autolycus" that was published in the Pall Mall Gazette.

[4][5] Her collection A White Umbrella and Other Stories (1895), published under the name Sarnia, included "A Ballet in the Skies", where the narrator takes a trip to the Moon using flowers.

[6] Her stories of plant and animals published in the Pall Mall Gazette were collected in two volumes, Confidences of an Amateur Gardener (1897) and Tom Tug and Others (1898).

The latter, illustrated by Elinor Mary Darwin, were stories told from the point of view of cats, dogs, insects, and a Mexican marmot named Whishton.