"She took very little notice of the orphan babe. She had tolerated it while her son lived; but he was gone, and the hated mother alone survived in the child. She never caressed it, seldom spoke to it, or of it, and always treated it with the most marked neglect.
"The extreme beauty of the little girl deeply interested the sympathies of my dear mother, who was one of the kindest women on earth; her large maternal heart, yearning over everything in the shape of a child, especially if that child was ill-used and an orphan.
"She often sent me to Mrs. Knight, to invite Alice to spend the day with her; that the children might have a good romp in the garden together.
"I was just four years older than Alice, but very small for my age. She was a healthy, well-grown child, there did not look more than the difference of a year in our respective ages. I had neither sister nor brother, and these visits from our little neighbour were hailed by me with intense pleasure.
"What a sweet child she was, with such a pair of clear, laughing blue eyes, such a happy, dimpled, innocent little face, yet brimful of mirth and mischief, and then, such wealth of golden brown hair, falling all round her rosy cheeks in showers of shining curls. She was my darling, my precious pet, and she would answer to no other names. I fell in love with her as a boy, and for years I only felt alive and happy in her presence.
"Hand in hand we roamed the beach to look for shells and bright stones, or wandered about the green common at the back of the town, among the gay furze bushes, hunting for the first violets.
"Mrs. Knight stood somewhat in awe of my father. Violence loves to contend with violence; it can only be subdued by gentleness and patience. My father's amiable qualities opposed to her fierce anger, were arrows in the hand of the giant, silently and surely they demolished the bulwarks of pride and hatred behind which she sought to entrench herself.
"She was civil to my mother, and though I shrank from the stern, sharp, scowling face, she sometimes condescended to pat my head, and call me a pretty boy.
"I had once seen her beat Alice very severely, for having mislaid her bonnet; and I never saw Mrs. Knight without longing to beat her after that.