This, however, I was speedily to acquire. My two eldest sisters--
eldest of three _then_ living, and also elder than myself--were summoned
to an early death. The first who died was Jane, about two years older
than myself. She was three and a half, I one and a half, more or less
by some trifle that I do not recollect. But death was then scarcely
intelligible to me, and I could not so properly be said to suffer
sorrow as a sad perplexity. There was another death in the house about
the same time, namely, of a maternal grandmother; but, as she had come
to us for the express purpose of dying in her daughter's society, and
from illness had lived perfectly secluded, our nursery circle knew her
but little, and were certainly more affected by the death (which I
witnessed) of a beautiful bird, viz., a kingfisher, which had been
injured by an accident. With my sister Jane's death (though otherwise,
as I have said, less sorrowful than perplexing) there was, however,
connected an incident which made a most fearful impression upon myself,
deepening my tendencies to thoughtfulness and abstraction beyond what
would seem credible for my years. If there was one thing in this world
from which, more than from any other, nature had forced me to revolt,
it was brutality and violence. Now, a whisper arose in the family that
a female servant, who by accident was drawn off from her proper duties
to attend my sister Jane for a day or two, had on one occasion treated
her harshly, if not brutally; and as this ill treatment happened within
three or four days of her death, so that the occasion of it must have
been some fretfulness in the poor child caused by her sufferings,
naturally there was a sense of awe and indignation diffused through
the family. I believe the story never reached my mother, and possibly
it was exaggerated; but upon me the effect was terrific. I did not
often see the person charged with this cruelty; but, when I did, my
eyes sought the ground; nor could I have borne to look her in the face;
not, however, in any spirit that could be called anger. The feeling