It soon became evident that she favored two, at least, out of all this
little masculine world--the Major myself; and a strange trio we made.
Her poor little daughter, the object of her passionate solicitude, a
very clever and precocious child, was the reverse of beautiful, although
she would have had fine eyes but for her red lashless lids. She wore her
thick hair cropped short, like a boy, and was pasty and sallow in
complexion, hollow-cheeked, thick-featured, and overgrown, with long
thin hands and feet, and arms and legs of quite pathetic length and
tenuity; a silent and melancholy little girl, who sucked her thumb
perpetually, and kept her own counsel. She would have to lie in bed for
days together, and when she got well enough to sit up, I (to please her
mother) would read to her _Le Robinson Suisse_, _Sandford and Merton_,
_Evenings at Home_, _Les Contes de Madame Perrault_, the shipwreck from
"Don Juan," of which we never tired, and the "Giaour," the "Corsair,"
and "Mazeppa"; and last, but not least, _Peter Parleys Natural History_,
which we got to know by heart.
And out of this latter volume I would often declaim for her benefit what
has always been to me the most beautiful poem in the world, possibly
because it was the first I read for myself, or else because it is so
intimately associated with those happy days.
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