Her mother taught her carefully to say her prayers, which included
petitions for the welfare of Grannie and father and brother Tom, and for
a time, with the perfunctoriness of childhood, which attaches more
weight to the act than to the meaning of it, she allowed that to pass
with a stickle and a slur. But very soon brother Tom was ruthlessly
dropped out of the ritual, and neither threats nor persuasion could
induce her to re-establish him.

Later on, and in private, she added to her acknowledged petitions an
appendix, unmistakably brief and to the point--"And, O God, please kill
brother Tom!"--and lived in hope.

She was an unusually pretty child, though her prettiness developed
afterwards--as childish prettiness does not always--into something finer
and more lasting.

She had, as a child, large dark blue eyes, which wore as a rule a look
of watchful anxiety--put there by brother Tom. To the end of her life
she carried the mark of a cut over her right eyebrow, which came within
an ace of losing her the sight of that eye. It was brother Tom did that.

She had an abundance of flowing brown hair, by which Tom delighted to
lift her clear off the ground, under threat of additional boxed ears if
she opened her mouth. The wide, firm little mouth always remained
closed, but the blue eyes burned fiercely, and the outraged little
heart, thumping furiously at its impotence, did its best to salve its
wounds with ceaseless repetition of its own private addition to the
prescribed form of morning and evening prayer.