ffering ages, such as existed between my father and myself, was
a thing she could scarcely understand. There were certain well-arranged
regulations for our daily life and conduct, and that any allowance
should be made for individual temperament was to her mind neither
suitable nor desirable. She treated me as one of her own, and that it
was possible for me to need more did not enter into her calculations.
But I did need more. I was a child of extremely warm affections, and
though I could not have expressed the feeling, my heart felt starved
upon the very small amount of love and attention which fell to my share.
I tried my best to be brave and not to fret, but sometimes my
home-sickness would gain the upper hand, and I have often wet my pillow
with bitter tears, longing with a yearning that was almost agony for one
kiss from my father before I went to sleep.

With my cousins I was soon a favourite.

"Tell us again about San Carlos, and the forest, and the tree-witches,
and the gri-gri man," said Edgar and Mary, who listened spell-bound to
my reminiscences of Tasso's marvellous stories; and I would sit in the
dusk by the nursery fire, with an audience of eager little faces around
me, putting such horrible realism into my narratives that Donald brought
Blair from her supper by screaming that the gri-gri man was under his
bed, while poor Mary never dared in future to pass the lumber-room door,
for fear of seeing a grinning goblin pop his head suddenly out of the
darkness.

Though we afterwards became the best of friends, Lucy treated me at
first with little airs of superiority and patronage. I am afraid we
began our acquaintance with a wordy war.

"You must feel quite glad to be in a proper English house, after living
in that queer foreign place," she remarked, by way of opening the
conversation.

"No, I'm not," I retorted. "Our house at San Carlos is ever so much
nicer than this. It has marble floors, and a terrace, and a pergola."

"I don't know what a pergola is," replied Lucy. "But we have a balcony,
and that's quite as good. Your clothes are so funnily made, Blair says
she hardly likes to take you out. Mother has sent for Miss Jenkins to
make you some new ones. You're going to do lessons with us every day. I
wonder if you'll be able to learn with me. Can you speak French?"

"No, but I can speak Spanish."

"Oh, that's no use! Who wants to talk Spanish? Mother said you had
learnt it from the servants, and the s