“I never found money fail but in one instance,” said Miss Wilhelmina thoughtfully. “Mind, it is not to every one that I would communicate my experience. People like to talk of themselves—to tell portions of their history; it relieves their minds. There are very few to whom I have ever told mine; but I think it will amuse you. The follies of others are always entertaining.
“My father was Scotch—my mother Irish. The two nations don’t amalgamate very well together. The children of such an union are apt to inherit the peculiar national failings of both. My father united to a love of science a great deal of mechanical genius. He was a clever, prudent, enterprising man, and amassed a large fortune. My mother I never knew—she died when I was an infant. My father hired a good-natured, easy kind of woman, to be nurse. She was a widow, without children, whom he afterwards promoted to the head of his table. She was his third wife. He had one son by his first marriage, who had been born in Scotland, and adopted by a rich uncle. He afterwards got an appointment in India; and I never saw him above half-a-dozen times in my life—and only when a child. He was a handsome, proud man, very Scotch in all his words and ways. We never took to one another. He thought me a spoilt, disagreeable, pert child; and I considered him a cross, stern man; and never could be induced to call him brother.
“I inherited a good property from my mother, which made me a very independent little lady, in my own conceit. I knew, that the moment I became of age, I was my own mistress. Perhaps it was this consciousness of power which made me the queer being I am.
“My step-mother was very fond of me. She spoilt me shockingly—more than most mothers indulge their brats. She always seemed to retain a sense of the inferior position she had held. Not a common failing, by-the-by: persons raised unexpectedly to wealth, from the lower class, generally measure their presumption by their ignorance. She always treated me as a superior. My father was very fond of her. These passive women are always great favourites with men. They have no decided character of their own, and become the mere echoes of superior minds. A vain man loves to see his own reflection in one of these domestic magnifying glasses: it is so gratifying to be the Alpha and Omega in his own house. His former wives were both handsome, conceited women, who thought so much of themselves that they could reflect no perfections but their own. In this respect I resembled my mother—from a baby I thought fit to have a will and opinions of my own.
“My step-mother always yielded to my masterly disposition when a child, generally ending the brief contest with the remark, ‘What a pity Willie was not a boy! What a fine spirited boy she would have made!’ When I grew a tall girl, I became more independent still, and virtually was mistress of the house. My father sent me to school. I learnt quickly enough; but I was expelled from half a dozen for striking my teacher whenever she dared to raise her hand to correct me. At length my education was finished, and I returned home for good, as wild and as fierce as an untamed colt.
“My step-mother had a nephew—a lad whom my father had befriended very much. He had paid for his education, had bound him to an eminent surgeon, and, when his term expired, had enabled him, from the same source, to walk the hospitals and attend the necessary lectures. Henry was attending the last course which was to fit him for entering upon his profession; and during that period he made our house his home.
“He was not handsome, but a well-grown, high-spirited, clever young fellow. Not at all a sentimental person, but abounding in frolic and fun, full of quaint, witty sayings, and the very incarnation of mischief. We took amazingly to each other; and he enjoyed all my odd freaks and fancies, and encouraged me in all my masculine propensities.
“I grew very fond of him: he was the only creature of his sex I ever loved;—but I did love him, and I thought that he loved me. I considered myself handsome and fascinating. All young people think so, if they are ever so ordinary. It belongs to the vanity of the age, which believes all things—hopes for all things, and entertains no fears for the result.
“The girls at school had told me, that ‘I was a perfect fright;’ but I did not believe them. They laughed at my snub nose and carrotty locks, and said ‘that it would take all my money to buy me a husband.’
“Now, by way of digression, I’m a great talker, Mrs. Lyndsay, and love to ramble from one subject to another. Do just tell me, why a snub nose should be reckoned vulgar, and red hair disgraceful?”