g which roses
bloomed in summer, and Gabrielle and I watched for their coming with
delight: those summer roses, on the great tangled bushes, were surely
more beautiful to us than to other and more fortunate children--we
gathered and preserved each leaf as it fell, and never was fragrance so
delicious!

Now it may naturally be supposed, that from ignorance our impressions
were not painful; but from the time when I first began to notice and
comprehend, I also began to bitterly feel our condition, and Gabrielle
felt it far more than I did. We knew that we were half-starved,
half-clad, neglected, unloved creatures, and that our parent was a
personification of Selfishness. We saw other children prettily dressed,
walking past with their mothers or nurses--or trotting to school,
healthful and happy; and our hearts yearned to be like them--yearned for
a mother's kiss! Gabrielle was habitually silent and proud, though often
passionate when we were at play together; but the outburst was soon
over, and she hugged me again directly. I early learned to dislike all
ugly things from gazing on her--her beauty was of a kind to dazzle a
child--she was so brilliantly fair and colorless, with clustering golden
hair falling to her waist, and large soft blue eyes, which always made
me think of heaven and the angels; for, thanks to His mercy, I knew of
them when I was yet a child.

Of course we were unacquainted with our father's history as we afterward
heard it. He was of a decayed but noble family, and--alas! it is a
commonplace tale--he had ruined his fortunes and broken his wife's
heart by gambling. Worse even than this, he was irretrievably disgraced
and lost to society, having been detected as a cheat; and broken down in
every sense of the word, with a trifling annuity only to subsist on, he
lived, as I remember him, pampered, luxurious, and utterly forgetful of
all save Self. And, oh! God grant there be none--poor or rich, high or
low--who can repeat the sacred name of "father" as I do, without an
emotion of tenderness, without the slightest gossamer thread of love or
respect twined around the memory to bind the parental benediction
thereto.

Nelly had followed our deceased mother from her native isle, for she too
was Irish, and clung to our father, ministering to his habits and
tastes, a good deal, I believe, for our sakes, and to keep near us. She
was a coarse woman; and, unlike her race in general, exhibited but few
outward demo