Sometimes she was quite embarrassing in her simplicity, and reminded me of her father.
Once in Dieppe—when she was about eight—she and I had gone through the Établissement to bathe, and people had stared at her even more than usual and whispered to each other.
"I bet you don't know why they all stare so, Uncle Bob?"
"I give it up," said I.
"It's because I'm so handsome—we're all handsome, you know, and I'm the handsomest of the lot, it seems! You're not handsome, Uncle Bob. But oh! aren't you strong! Why, you could tuck a piou‑piou under one arm and a postman under the other and walk up to the castle with them and pitch them into the sea, couldn't you? And that's better than being handsome, isn't it? I wish I was like that."
And here she cuddled and kissed my hand.
When Mary began to sing (under Signor R.) it was her custom of an afternoon to lock herself up alone with a tuning‑fork in a large garret and practise, as she was shy of singing exercises before any one else.
Her voice, even practising scales, would give Marty extraordinary pleasure, and me, too. Marty and I have often sat outside and listened to Mary's rich and fluent vocalizings; and I hoped that Marty would develop a great voice also, as she was so like Mary in face and disposition, except that Mary's eyes were blue and her hair very black, and her health unexceptionable.
Marty did not develop a real voice, although she sang very prettily and confidentially to me, and worked hard at the piano with Roberta; she learned harmony and composed little songs, and wrote words to them, and Mary or her father would sing them to her and make her happy beyond description.
Happy! she was always happy during the first few years of her life—from five or six to twelve.