I write the word "mother." My father, Sir Roland Tayne, was a hearty,
handsome, pleasure-loving man. No one ever saw him dull, or cross, or
angry; he was liberal, generous, and beloved.

He worships my beautiful young mother, and he worshiped me. Every one
said I was the very image of mama. I had the same golden hair and
deep-blue eyes; the same shaped face and hands. I remember that my
mother--that sweet young mother--never walked steadily when she was out
with me. It was as though she could not help dancing like a child.

"Come along, baby darling," she would say to me, "let us get away from
them all, and have a race."

She called me "baby" until I was nearly six--for no other came to take
my place. I heard the servants speak of me, and say what a great heiress
I would be in the years to come, if my father had no sons; but I hardly
understood, and cared still less.

As I grew older I worshipped my beautiful mother, she was so very kind
to me. I always felt that she was so pleased to see me. She never gave
me the impression that I was tiresome, or intruded on her. Sometimes her
toilet would be finished before the dinner-bell rang, then she would
come to the nursery and ask for me. We walked up and down the long
picture gallery, where the dead, and gone Ladies Tayne looked at us from
the walls. No face there was so fair as my mother's. She was more
beautiful than a picture, with her golden hair and fair face, her
sweeping dresses and trailing laces.

The tears rise even now, hot and bitter, to my eyes when I think of
those happy hours--my intense pride in and devoted love for my mother.