to papa, and that she was to live with us, and be my mamma.

The housekeeper shook her head, and said, "Poor thing! how soon
children forget every thing!"

I could not imagine what she meant by my forgetting every thing, for
I instantly recollected poor mamma used to say I had an excellent
memory.

The women began to draw on their white gloves, and the seams rending
in several places, Anne said, "This is just the way our gloves served
us at my mistress's funeral." The other checked her, and said "Hush!"
I was then thinking of some instances in which my mamma had praised my
memory, and this reference to her funeral fixed her idea in my mind.

From the time of her death no one had ever spoken to me of my mamma,
and I had apparently forgotten her; yet I had a habit which perhaps
had not been observed, of taking my little stool, which had been my
mamma's footstool, and a doll, which my mamma had drest for me, while
she was sitting in her elbow-chair, her head supported with pillows.
With these in my hands, I used to go to the door of the room in which
I had seen her in her last illness; and after trying to open it, and
peeping through the keyhole, from whence I could just see a glimpse of
the crimson curtains, I used to sit down on the stool before the door,
and play with my doll, and sometimes sing to it mamma's pretty song,
of "Balow my babe;" imitating as well as I could, the weak voice in
which she used to sing it to me. My mamma had a very sweet voice. I
remember now the gentle tone in which she used to say my prattle did
not disturb her.

When I was drest in my new frock, I wished poor mamma was alive to
see how fine I was on papa's wedding-day, and I ran to my favourite
station at her bed-room door. There I sat thinking of my mamma, and
trying to remember exactly how she used to look; because I foolishly
imagined that miss Saville was to be changed into something like my
own mother, whose pale and delicate appearance in her last illness was
all that I retained of her remembrance.

When my father returned home with his bride, he walked up stairs
to look for me, and my new mamma followed him. They found me at my
mother's door, earnestly looking through the keyhole; I was thinking
so intently on my mother, that when my father said, "Here is your new
mamma, my Elinor," I turned round, and began to cry, for no other
reason than because she had a very high colour, and I remembered my
mamma was very pale; she had br