d me or not,
then; it was so natural, that it was like the air I breathed. Yet he
was an angry man at times, even then; but never with me. He was very
reckless, too; and, once or twice, I heard a whisper among the servants
that a doom was over him, and that he knew it, and tried to drown his
knowledge in wild activity, and even sometimes, sir, in wine. So I grew
up in this grand mansion, in that lonely place. Everything around me
seemed at my disposal, and I think every one loved me; I am sure loved
them. Till about two years ago--I remember it well--my father had come
to England, to us; and he seemed so proud and so pleased with me and
all I had done. And one day his tongue seemed loosened with wine, and
he told me much that I had not known till then,--how dearly he had
loved my mother, yet how his wilful usage had caused her death; and
then he went on to say how he loved me better than any creature on
earth, and how, some day, he hoped to take me to foreign places, for
that he could hardly bear these long absences from his only child. Then
he seemed to change suddenly, and said, in a strange, wild way, that I
was not to believe what he said; that there was many a thing he loved
better--his horse--his dog--I know not what.

'And 'twas only the next morning that, when I came into his room to ask
his blessing as was my wont, he received me with fierce and angry
words. 'Why had I,' so he asked, 'been delighting myself in such wanton
mischief--dancing over the tender plants in the flower-beds, all set
with the famous Dutch bulbs he had brought from Holland?' I had never
been out of doors that morning, sir, and I could not conceive what he
meant, and so I said; and then he swore at me for a liar, and said I
was of no true blood, for he had seen me doing all that mischief
himself--with his own eyes. What could I say? He would not listen to
me, and even my tears seemed only to irritate him. That day was the
beginning of my great sorrows. Not long after, he reproached me for my
undue familiarity--all unbecoming a gentlewoman--with his grooms. I had
been in the stable-yard, laughing and talking, he said. Now, sir, I am
something of a coward by nature, and I had always dreaded horses;
besides that, my father's servants--those whom he brought with him from
foreign parts--were wild fellows, whom I had always avoided, and to
whom I had never spoken, except as a lady must needs from time to time
speak to her father's people. Yet my