Six to Sixteen

giment was in India for six years, just after I was born; indeed, I was not many months old when I mad

res of a young baby on her hands; nominally, at any rate, but I think the chief care of me fell upon our Ayah. My mother hired her in England. The Ayah wished to return to her country, and wa

oman at the station when she got there. Some people have told me that she was the prettiest woman they ever

opposite to me. But I could get no further just then. I put my hands before my eyes as if to shade them from the

Margery! what

rly, "It is very well for you to write about your childhood, who

with her teeth set, and h

onsiderate, dense, unfeeling brute that ever lived." She looked so quaintly, veheme

now, and I promise to disturb you no more." And in this I was resolute, though

er brief appearances in the room where I played, in much dirt and contentment, at my Ayah's feet-rustling in silks and satins, glittering with costly ornaments, beautiful and scented, like a fairy dream. I would forego all these visions for one-only one-memory of her praying by my bedside, or teaching me a

e, to which she has gone back; and she says softly, "Margery, dear Margery, d

friends were of the Ayah's complexion. We had more than one "bearer" during those years, to whom I was greatly attached. I spoke more Hindostanee than English. The other day I saw a group of Lascar sailors at the Southampton Station; they had just come off a ship, and we

metimes my father would have me brought out, and take me before him on his horse for a few minutes. But my nurse never allowed this if a ready excus

f the many reasons for which "company" hung about our homes. I remember that it was an amusement to me to discover, "there are six to-day," or "five to-day," and to tell my Ayah. I was even more minute. I divided them into three classes: "the little ones, the middle ones, and the o

were pink, to match my frock, and I was not a little vain of them. There were usually some ladies in the room, dressed in rustling finery like my mother, but not like her in the face-never so pretty. There were always plenty of gentlemen of the three degrees, and they used to be very polite to me, and to call

y happy holiday we spent together. My father got some leave, and took us for a short time to the hills. My clearest memory of his face is as it smiled on me, from under a broad hat, as we made

nce of it almost as