ld it, in the first person, and, perhaps, this is as it should
be. She began as follows.

My maiden name was Richardson,[A] the designation of a family of
some distinction in the county of Tyrone. I was the younger of two
daughters, and we were the only children. There was a difference in
our ages of nearly six years, so that I did not, in my childhood,
enjoy that close companionship which sisterhood, in other
circumstances, necessarily involves; and while I was still a child, my
sister was married. The person upon whom she bestowed her hand, was a
Mr. Carew, a gentleman of property and consideration in the north
of England. I remember well the eventful day of the wedding; the
thronging carriages, the noisy menials, the loud laughter, the merry
faces, and the gay dresses. Such sights were then new to me, and
harmonized ill with the sorrowful feelings with which I regarded the
event which was to separate me, as it turned out, for ever, from a
sister whose tenderness alone had hitherto more than supplied all that
I wanted in my mother's affection. The day soon arrived which was to
remove the happy couple from Ashtown-house. The carriage stood at the
hall-door, and my poor sister kissed me again, and again, telling me
that I should see her soon. The carriage drove away, and I gazed
after it until my eyes filled with tears, and, returning slowly to my
chamber, I wept more bitterly, and so, to speak more desolately, than
ever I had done before. My father had never seemed to love, or to
take an interest in me. He had desired a son, and I think he never
thoroughly forgave me my unfortunate sex. My having come into the
world at all as his child, he regarded as a kind of fraudulent
intrusion, and, as his antipathy to me had its origin in an
imperfection of mine, too radical for removal, I never even hoped to
stand high in his good graces. My mother was, I dare say, as fond of
me as she was of any one; but she was a woman of a masculine and
a worldly cast of mind. She had no tenderness or sympathy for the
weaknesses, or even for the affections of woman's nature, and her
demeanour towards me was peremptory, and often even harsh. It is not
to be supposed, then, that I found in the society of my parents much
to supply the loss of my sister. About a year after her marriage, we
received letters from Mr. Carew, containing accounts of my sister's
health, which, though not actually alarming, were calculated to
make us seriously uneasy.