nd to me. Moreover, since the disappearance of
Cissy she was the first to bestow again upon me a good opinion of my
small self. My mother praised me when I was good, which to her was the
one thing needful; but few of us, I fear, child or grown-up, take much
pride in our solid virtues, finding them generally hindrances to our
desires: like the oyster's pearl, of more comfort to the world than to
ourselves. If others there were who admired me, very guardedly must they
have kept the secret I would so gladly have shared with them. But this
new friend of ours--or had I not better at once say enemy--made me feel
when in her presence a person of importance. How it was accomplished
I cannot explain. No word of flattery nor even of mere approval ever
passed her lips. Her charm to me was not that she admired me, but that
she led me by some mysterious process to admire myself.

And yet in spite of this and many lesser kindnesses she showed to me,
I never really liked her; but rather feared her, dreading always the
sudden raising of those ever half-closed eyelids.

She sat next to my father at the corner of the table, her chin resting
on her long white hands, her sweet lips parted, and as often as his
eyes were turned away from her, her soft low voice would draw them back
again. Once she laid her hand on his, laughing the while at some light
jest of his, and I saw that he flushed; and following his quick glance,
saw that my mother's eyes were watching also.

I have spoken of my father only as he then appeared to me, a child--an
older chum with many lines about his mobile mouth, the tumbled hair
edged round with grey; but looking back with older eyes, I see him a
slightly stooping, yet still tall and graceful man, with the face of a
poet--the face I mean a poet ought to possess but rarely does, nature
apparently abhorring the obvious--with the shy eyes of a boy, and a
voice tender as a woman's. Never the dingiest little drab that entered
the kitchen but adored him, speaking always of "the master" in tones of
fond proprietorship, for to the most slatternly his "orders" had ever
the air of requests for favours. Women, I so often read, can care for
only masterful men. But may there not be variety in women as in other
species? Or perhaps--if the suggestion be not over-daring--the many
writers, deeming themselves authorities upon this subject of woman, may
in this one particular have erred? I only know my father spoke to
few women whos