years of age at that eventful period, and was as indignant at the
scolding I received when trying to do a magnanimous act, take care of
baby and let poor, tired mother sleep, as I have been many times since,
when, unluckily, I had upset somebody's dish, and "Emily did it" has
rung its hateful sound in my ears. To say I was unlucky was not enough;
I was untimely, unwarranted and unwanted, I often felt, in early years
in everything I attempted, and the naturally quick temper I possessed
was only aggravated and tortured into more harassing activity, rendering
me on the whole, perhaps, not very amiable. Interesting I could not be,
since whatever I attempted I seemed fated to say or do something to hurt
somebody's feelings, and, mortified at my failures, I would draw myself
closer to myself, shrinking from others, and saying again and again,
"Emily, why _must_ you do it?"

Introducing myself thus clouded to your sympathy, I cannot expect my
reader would be interested in a rehearsal of all my early trials.

You can imagine how it must have been as I marched along from childhood
through girlhood into womanhood, while I still clung to my strange ways
and peculiar sayings; upsetting of inkstands at school, mud tracking
over the carpet in the "best room" at home, unconscious betrayal of
mischief plans, etc., etc., made up the full catalogue of my days and
their experiences, and although I did have a few warm friends, I could
not be as other girls were, generally happy and beloved.

Mother was the only real friend I had; it seemed to me, as I grew older,
she learned to know that I was too often blamed, where at heart I was
wholly blameless, and when sometimes she stroked my hair, and said, "My
dear child, how unlucky you are," I felt that I could do anything for
her, and she never, to my remembrance, said "Emily did it."