first page. The first name his eye encountered was his own.

"Richard's fourteenth birthday. I have worked him a purse and put it
under his pillow, because he is going to have plenty of money. He does
not notice me now because he has a friend now, and he is ugly, but
Richard is not, and never will be."

The occurrences of that day were subsequently recorded, and a childish
prayer to God for him set down. Step by step he saw her growing mind in
his history. As she advanced in years she began to look back, and made
much of little trivial remembrances, all bearing upon him.

"We went into the fields and gathered cowslips together, and pelted each
other, and I told him he used to call them 'coals-sleeps' when he was a
baby, and he was angry at my telling him, for he does not like to be told
he was ever a baby."

He remembered the incident, and remembered his stupid scorn of her meek
affection. Little Clare! how she lived before him in her white dress and
pink ribbons, and soft dark eyes! Upstairs she was lying dead. He read
on:

"Mama says there is no one in the world like Richard, and I am sure there
is not, not in the whole world. He says he is going to be a great
General and going to the wars. If he does I shall dress myself as a boy
and go after him, and he will not know me till I am wounded. Oh I pray
he will never, never be wounded. I wonder what I should feel if Richard
was ever to die."

Upstairs Clare was lying dead.