grandfather used to say. He had brought my mother to the island, and
left her in my grandfather's care whilst he went on a voyage to
Australia. He went from the island in that same little steamer which
called every Monday morning. My grandfather stood on the end of the pier
as the steamer went out of sight, and my mother waved her handkerchief
to him as long as any smoke was seen on the horizon. Grandfather has
often told me how young and pretty she looked that summer morning. My
father had promised to write soon, but no letter ever came. Mother went
down to the pier every Monday morning for three long years, to see if it
had brought her any word from her sailor husband.

But after a time her step became slower and her face paler, and at last
she was too weak to go down the rocks to the pier, when the steamer
arrived on Monday morning. And soon after this I was left motherless.

From that day, the day on which my mother died, my grandfather became
both father and mother to me. There was nothing he would not have done
for me, and wherever he went and whatever he did, I was always by his
side.

As I grew older, he taught me to read and write, for there was of course
no school which I could attend. I also learnt to help him to trim the
lamps, and to work in the garden. Our life went on very evenly from day
to day, until I was about twelve years old. I used to wish sometimes
that something new would happen to make a little change on the island.
And at last a change came.