ooner you forgot it the better."

"I won't forget it. I shall speak it when I go back."

"You're not going back."

"Yes, I am, soon. Father will send for me," I ventured desperately.

"No, not till you're quite grown up. I heard Mother tell Miss Masterman
so just now. She said your ways were as queer as your clothes, and you
would take a great deal of training before you were fit to be sent to
school."

"I _will_ go back! I _will_ speak Spanish!" I declared in great
indignation. "Juanita and Tasso can't speak anything else."

"I wonder you care to talk to negroes," said Lucy, tossing back her
hair. "I like white people myself, and I'm sure you needn't boast of
having been carried about by an old black man!"

The slight to my dear friends stung me even more than the insult to my
clothes and my manners, and I ended in a storm of miserable crying. Next
to my father I very truly missed those kind companions of my childhood,
and ever to forget them seemed to me the basest ingratitude.

My new English clothes were of sober colours and serviceable materials;
they seemed to match my new life, and perhaps my manners changed with
them, for I soon settled down into the little daily round which was
appointed for me. At first I found the regular lessons somewhat of a
trial, as I had never been accustomed either to learn systematically,
or really to apply myself. But Miss Masterman, our daily governess, was
both a kind and clever teacher, and after a while I grew so interested
in my work that I easily caught up Lucy, and even began to outstrip
her--a little, I fancy, to her chagrin.

I wrote regularly to my father. I have one of these childish letters by
me now, for he treasured them carefully, and to read it brings back so
keenly the remembrance of those early days that I shall give it a place
in these pages. Here it is, exactly as I wrote it, in my most careful
round hand.

CHESTNUT AVENUE,
June 12th.

"My dearest Father,

"I think of you every day of my life. I have put your photo on
my dressing-table, and I kiss it good-night and good-morning as
if it were really you. I am trying very hard to be happy, but my
two troubles are porridge and scales. Porridge is something like
the food Tasso used to mix up for the ducks, only you eat it
hot. Blair says it will make me grow strong, and I must take
what is given me and not find fault, so I gulp it down, though
it nearly ch