gotten.

From that day my mother waxes in my memory; Mrs. Fursey, of the many
promontories, waning. There were sunny mornings in the neglected garden,
where the leaves played round us while we worked and read; twilight
evenings in the window seat where, half hidden by the dark red curtains,
we would talk in whispers, why I know not, of good men and noble women,
ogres, fairies, saints and demons; they were pleasant days.

Possibly our curriculum lacked method; maybe it was too varied and
extensive for my age, in consequence of which chronology became confused
within my brain, and fact and fiction more confounded than has usually
been considered permissible, even in history. I saw Aphrodite, ready
armed and risen from the sea, move with stately grace to meet King
Canute, who, throned upon the sand, bade her come no further lest
she should wet his feet. In forest glade I saw King Rufus fall from a
poisoned arrow shot by Robin Hood; but thanks to sweet Queen Eleanor,
who sucked the poison from his wound, I knew he lived. Oliver Cromwell,
having killed King Charles, married his widow, and was in turn stabbed
by Hamlet. Ulysses, in the Argo, it was fixed upon my mind, had
discovered America. Romulus and Remus had slain the wolf and rescued
Little Red Riding Hood. Good King Arthur, for letting the cakes burn,
had been murdered by his uncle in the Tower of London. Prometheus, bound
to the Rock, had been saved by good St. George. Paris had given the
apple to William Tell. What matter! the information was there. It needed
rearranging, that was all.

Sometimes, of an afternoon, we would climb the steep winding pathway
through the woods, past awful precipices, spirit-haunted, by grassy
swards where fairies danced o' nights, by briar and bracken sheltered
Caves where fearsome creatures lurked, till high above the creeping sea
we would reach the open plateau where rose old Jacob's ruined tower.
"Jacob's Folly" it was more often called about the country side, and by
some "The Devil's Tower;" for legend had it that there old Jacob and his
master, the Devil, had often met in windy weather to wave false wrecking
lights to troubled ships. Who "old Jacob" was, I never, that I can
remember, learned, nor how nor why he built the Tower. Certain only it
is his memory was unpopular, and the fisher folk would swear that
still on stormy nights strange lights would gleam and flash from the
ivy-curtained windows of his Folly.

But in day time n