closet into the
inhabited parts of the house, and sought refuge in the lap of some one
of the female servants, or of my aunt, who would say, seeing me look
pale, that Hannah [Maria] had been frightening herself with some of
those _nasty books_: so she used to call my favourite volumes, which I
would not have parted with, no not with one of the least of them, if I
had had the choice to be made a fine princess and to govern the world.
But my aunt was no reader. She used to excuse herself, and say, that
reading hurt her eyes. I have been naughty enough to think that this
was only an excuse, for I found that my aunt's weak eyes did not
prevent her from poring ten hours a day upon her prayer-book, or
her favourite Thomas a Kempis. But this was always her excuse for
not reading any of the books I recommended. My aunt was my father's
sister. She had never been married. My father was a good deal older
than my mother, and my aunt was ten years older than my father. As I
was often left at home with her, and as my serious disposition so well
agreed with hers, an intimacy grew up between the old lady and me, and
she would often say, that she only loved one person in the world, and
that was me. Not that she and my parents were on very bad terms; but
the old lady did not feel herself respected enough. The attention and
fondness which she shewed to me, conscious as I was that I was almost
the only being she felt any thing like fondness to, made me love her,
as it was natural; indeed I am ashamed to say that I fear I almost
loved her better than both my parents put together. But there was an
oddness, a silence about my aunt, which was never interrupted but by
her occasional expressions of love to me, that made me stand in fear
of her. An odd look from under her spectacles would sometimes scare me
away, when I had been peering up in her face to make her kiss me. Then
she had a way of muttering to herself, which, though it was good words
and religious words that she was mumbling, somehow I did not like. My
weak spirits, and the fears I was subject to, always made me afraid of
any personal singularity or oddness in any one. I am ashamed, ladies,
to lay open so many particulars of our family; but, indeed it is
necessary to the understanding of what I am going to tell you, of a
very great weakness, if not wickedness, which I was guilty of towards
my aunt. But I must return to my studies, and tell you what books I
found in the closet, and wh