and they don't make any more nowadays, for the Roarin' Days have been dead
these thirty years. I wish I'd had a thousand pounds to start on!

Mary's mother was the daughter of a German immigrant, who selected up there
in the old days. She had a will of her own as far as I could understand,
and bossed the home till the day of her death. Mary's father made money,
and lost it, and drank -- and died. Mary remembered him
sitting on the verandah one evening with his hand on her head,
and singing a German song (the `Lorelei', I think it was) softly,
as if to himself. Next day he stayed in bed, and the children were kept
out of the room; and, when he died, the children were adopted round
(there was a little money coming from England).

Mary told me all about her girlhood. She went first to live
with a sort of cousin in town, in a house where they took in cards on a tray,
and then she came to live with Mrs Black, who took a fancy to her at first.
I'd had no boyhood to speak of, so I gave her some of my ideas
of what the world ought to be, and she seemed interested.

Next day there were sheets on my bed, and I felt pretty cocky
until I remembered that I'd told her I had no one to care for me;
then I suspected pity again.

But next evening we remembered that both our fathers and mothers were dead,
and discovered that we had no friends except Jack and old Black,
and things went on very satisfactorily.

And next day there was a little table in my room with a crocheted cover
and a looking-glass.