d not like her doing that to me.

My curiosity became stronger, I got bolder, told servants I meant to see
them wash themselves, and used to wait inside by bed-room, till I heard
one of them come up to dress. I knew the time each usually went to her
bedroom for that purpose, the person most in my way was the nurse: she
after a time left, and mother nursed her own children. "Let's see your
neck; do, there is a dear," I would say. "Nonsense, what next?" "Do,
dear, there is no harm; I only want to see as much as ladies show at
balls." I wheedled one to stand at the door in her petticoats and show
her neck across the bedroom lobby. The stays were high and queerly made
in those days, the chemises pulled over the top of them like flaps. One
or two let me kiss their necks, a girl one day said to my entreaties,
"Well, only for a minute," and easing up one breast, she showed me
the nipple, I threw my arms around her, buried my face in her neck and
kissed it. "I like the smell of your breast and flesh," said I. She was
a biggish woman, and I dare say I smelt breasts and armpits together;
but whatever the compound, it was delicious to me, it seemed to enervate
me. The same woman, when I kissed her on the sly afterwards, let me
put my nose down her neck to smell her. We were interrupted. "There is
someone coming," said she, moving away.

"What makes ladies smell so nice?" said I to my mother one day. My
mother put down her work and laughed to herself. "I don't know that they
smell nice."

"Yes, they do, and particularly when they have low dresses on."
"Ladies," said mother, "use patchouli and other perfumes." I supposed
so, but felt convinced from mother's manner, that I had asked a question
which embarrassed her.

I used to lean over the backs of the chairs of ladies, get my face as
near to their necks as I could, quietly inhale their odours, and talk
all the time. Not every woman smelt nice to me, and when they did, it
was not patchouli, for I got patchouli, which I liked, and perfumed
myself with it. This delicate sense of smell of a woman I have had
throughout life, it was ravishing to me afterwards, when I embraced the
naked body of a fresh, healthy young woman.

From about this time of my life, I recollect striking events much more
clearly, yet the circumstances which led up to them or succeeded them I
often cannot. One day, Miss Granger, our former governess, came to see
us. I kissed her. Mother said: "Wattie, you must