that luxury I
had left behind me. I wanted my nice bed with the pink curtains, and my
little tool-case. I wanted my little punt, my pony, my fishing-rod.
I wanted the obsequious servants, who ran at my bidding, and whose
respectful manner was a homage I loved to exact. Not one of these was
forthcoming, and how could I believe her who soothingly told me that her
love would replace them, and that her heart's affection would soon be
dearer to roe than all my toys and all the glittering presents that
littered my room? "But I want my pony," I cried; "I want my little dog
Fan, and I want to sit beside papa, and see him drive four horses, and
he lets me whip them too, and _you_ won't." And so I cried hysterically
again, and in these fretful paroxysms I passed my evening.

The first week of my life there was to me--it still is to me--like a
dream,--a sad, monotonous dream. Repulsed in every form, my mother still
persisted in trying to amuse or interest me, and I either sat in moody
silence, refusing all attention, or went off into passionate grief,
sobbing as if my heart would break. "Let him cry his fill," said old
Biddy the maid,--"let him cry his fill, and it will do him good." And I
could have killed her on the spot as she said it.

If Biddy Cassidy really opined that a hearty fit of crying would have
been a good alterative for me, she ought not to have expressed the
opinion in my presence, for there was that much of my father in me that
quickly suggested resistance, and I at once resolved that, no matter
what it might cost me, or by what other means I might find a vent for
my grief, I 'd cry no more. All my poor mother's caresses, all her
tenderness, and all her watchful care never acted on my character with
half the force or one-tenth of the rapidity that did this old hag's
attempt to thwart and oppose me. Her system was, by a continual
comparison between my present life and my past, to show how much better
off I was now than in my former high estate, and by a travesty of all I
had been used to, to pretend that anything like complaint from me would
be sheer ingratitude. "Here's the pony, darlin', waitin' for you to ride
him," she would say, as she would lay an old walking-stick beside my
door; and though the blood would rush to my head at the insult, and
something very nigh choking rise to my throat, I would master my passion
and make no reply. This demeanor was set down to sulkiness, and Biddy
warmly entreated my mother