the day playing in the garden near Papa. I never cared for dolls,
but one of my favourite amusements was making coloured mixtures
with seeds and the bark of trees. If the colours were pretty, I
would promptly offer them to Papa in a little cup and entice him
to taste them; then my dearest Father would leave his work and
smilingly pretend to drink. I was very fond of flowers, and amused
myself by making little altars in holes which I happened to find
in the middle of my garden wall. When finished I would run and
call Papa, and he seemed delighted with them. I should never stop
if I told you of the thousand and one incidents of this kind that
I can remember. How shall I make you understand the love that my
Father lavished on his little Queen!

Those were specially happy days for me when I went fishing with my
dear "King," as I used to call him. Sometimes I tried my hand with
a small rod of my own, but generally I preferred to sit on the
grass some distance away. Then my reflections became really deep,
and, without knowing what meditation meant, my soul was absorbed
in prayer. Far-off sounds reached me, the murmuring of the wind,
sometimes a few uncertain notes of music from a military band in
the town a long way off; all this imparted a touch of melancholy
to my thoughts. Earth seemed a place of exile, and I dreamed of
Heaven.

The afternoon passed quickly away, and it was soon time to go
home, but before packing up I would eat the provisions I had
brought in a small basket. Somehow the slices of bread and jam,
prepared by my sisters, looked different; they had seemed so
tempting, and now they looked stale and uninviting. Even such a
trifle as this made the earth seem sadder, and I realised that