Perhaps she thought I could not, but it seemed to afford her infinite satisfaction just to have me in her sight. It may be she felt, in some vague way, that I was nearer babyhood than the rest, and so more of her kind. At any rate, she always seemed perfectly happy and content when she could watch me, at any of my pursuits; and when I left the room, the little silvery voice would call after me,—
"Nan! Nan! Nan!"
She was a full year and a half old before she began to walk, and then she was so small and delicate that she looked as you might fancy a baby out of fairy land would look, flitting round on her tiniest of feet, her yellow hair glinting goldenly in every chance sunbeam, and her wistful eyes blue as a blue flower.
How could I help loving her? Ay, how could I?
I fancy I must have loved her a little, even then, only I had grown so in the habit of regarding her as an interloper, a rival, an alien, who was taking from me all which had formerly been mine, that I never owned, even in the silence of my own heart, to any softening toward her.
Father and mother were good to me beyond my deserts, and beyond my poor words to describe. I have known, since, with what infinite love and grief they sorrowed over me, while waiting for this evil growth in my heart to be uprooted, as they felt sure it would be, some time. They had the wisdom to know that reproof would be vain, and simply to love me and be silent.
But if they loved me, and were to me most patient and kind, they were devoted to little Lily, as was natural. She was so frail and so fair, so needed their constant watchfulness, that it is not strange she had it.
One day, when she was two years old and I was twelve, I sat in a corner of the sitting-room, putting a dissected map together, while a lady was calling upon my mother. She looked earnestly and long at Lily; but that was not uncommon; the child's dainty beauty was a pleasant thing to watch. At last, after she had risen to go, she said, as if she couldn't help saying it,—
"Take good care of that little one, Mrs. Allen. She looks to me like one of the children the angels love."