w or
in emotion, her tears fell unconsciously from her eyes, and
would trickle down her cheeks without any of the disfiguring
grimaces which usually attend the act of weeping. I loved her
from the first instant I saw her, and my childish heart clung
to her with all the strength of feeling that had lain dormant
in it during the first years of my existence. To use a
familiar expression, we took to each other instantaneously; I
do not know that she was fond of children, as it is called;
she did not stop to caress those we met in our walks, and of
romping and noise she grew very soon weary; but there was so
much originality in her understanding, and so much simplicity
in her character; she was so in earnest about every employment
and amusement which she admitted me to share, that, superior
as she was, I never felt that she was making an effort to
bring herself down to my level, and consequently in her
society never experienced the weariness which children are apt
to feel, from those flat and unprofitable attempts to amuse
them, which are so often made and so often fail. She required
sympathy; it was as necessary to her as the air of heaven, and
what she so much needed herself, she amply yielded to others,
I never met in my life with any one who entered into the
feelings of those about her as she did.

Altogether, she was a person more calculated to diffuse
happiness than to enjoy it; perhaps to inspire more
enthusiastic feelings of affection, than she herself often
experienced. Be that as it may, she opened a new era in the
history of my childhood; and, during the six or seven years
that followed the epoch of my uncle's marriage, my life was as
happy as that of a human creature can be. About a year after
that event, Mrs. Middleton was confined of a girl, and this
circumstance, far from diminishing my happiness, served but to
increase it. My aunt was not a person capable of being
engrossed by an infant, and though greatly pleased at the
birth of her little girl, her affection for me suffered no
diminution. The cares which little Julia required--the task of
entertaining her, which often fell to my share--formed a
delightful amusement; and I do not remember, till the time
when she was eight and I fifteen, having ever felt, or,
indeed, having had cause to feel, one jealous pang on her
account.

Mrs. Middleton took great pains with my education,--at least
with those parts of it which were congenial to her taste and
mine;