“After he was gone I grieved myself sick! I loved him so dearly! I longed to go with him so ardently.
“But it was not to be.
“Why do I linger over these details? Is it because we all grow garrulous when talking or writing of our childhood? Or is it because I dread to approach the period of my life’s tragedy? Or do both these causes combine to influence me? I know not; but I know that I must hurry toward that from which I shrink.
“A few weeks after this, being in the heat of summer, my father came again to see me, bringing my stepmother and my little baby brother with him.
“He had written to apprise us of the visit, so we were all ready for him. All the animosity I had ever felt against my stepmother vanished when I saw her pale, patient face. My child heart pitied her, and from pity I loved her; and did everything in my small power to please her; except this—I would not call her mother. I said it would not be right toward my own dear mother, who was in heaven. And she kissed me, and said she only was sorry she had not been able to do a mother’s part by her motherless child, for that she, too, would soon be in heaven, where she would meet my own mother, when she could only tell her that she loved, but had not been able to serve, her daughter.
“As for my infant brother, now a year old, I idolized him. His mother delighted in my affection for her child.
“‘I have not been able to be good to you, my poor little girl; but you will be good to him when I am gone, will you not?’ she inquired.
“‘Indeed, indeed, I will. I will love him better than myself. I will die for him,’ I said, taking the extravagant view and using the exaggerated language that was usual with me.
“The chills of autumn come very early at Weirdwaste, and so about the middle of September, when the evenings began to be cold, my father took my stepmother and my baby brother back and settled them for a few weeks at Torquay, then believed to be the best winter resort in England.
“I grieved after them for a week or more. And, oh! how I wondered why they could not take me with them!