my skirt, that I'd muddied in the street, and said to her, with
great gravity:

"Una naughty girl: Una got her frock wet. Aunt Emma going to scold
poor Una for being so naughty!"

Not that I often smiled, in those days; for, in spite of Aunt Emma's
kindness, my second girlhood, like my first, was a very unhappy one.
The Horror and the Picture pursued me too close. It was months and
months before I could get rid for a moment of that persistent
nightmare. And yet I had everything else on earth to make me happy.
Aunt Emma lived in a pretty east-coast town, with high bracken-clad
downs, and breezy common beyond; while in front stretched great
sands, where I loved to race about and to play cricket and tennis.
It was the loveliest town that ever you saw in your life, with a
broken chancel to the grand old church, and a lighthouse on a hill,
with delicious views to seaward. The doctor had sent me there (I
know now) as soon as I was well enough to move, in order to get me
away from the terrible associations of The Grange at Woodbury. As
long as I lived in the midst of scenes which would remind me of poor
father, he said, and of his tragical death, there was no hope of my
recovery. The only chance for me to regain what I had lost in that
moment of shock was complete change of air, of life, of
surroundings. Aunt Emma, for her part, was only too glad to take me
in: and as poor papa had died intestate, Aunt Emma was now, of
course, my legal guardian.

She was my mother's sister, I learned as time went on; and there had
been feud while he lived between her and my father. Why, I couldn't
imagine. She was the sweetest old soul I ever knew, indeed, and what