d very
old-fashioned in her ways. She did wear caps, at least I _think_ she
always did, for, of course, she was not _young_. But her hair was very
nicely done under them, and they were pretty fluffy things. She made
them herself, and she made a great many other things herself--for me
too. For, you will perhaps wonder more than ever at my saying what a
happy child I was, when I tell you that we were really _very_ poor.

I cannot tell you exactly how much or how little we had to live upon,
and _most_ children would not understand any the better if I did. For a
hundred pounds a year even, sounds a great deal to a child, and yet it
is very little indeed for one lady by herself to live upon, and of
course still less for two people. And I don't think we had much more
than that. Grandmamma told me when I grew old enough to understand
better, that when I first came to live with her, after both papa and
mamma were dead, and she found that there was no money for me--that was
not poor papa's fault; he had done all that could be done, but the money
was lost by other people's wrong-doing--well, as I was saying, when
grandmamma found how it was, she thought over about doing something to
make more. She was very clever in many ways; she could speak several
languages, and she knew a lot about music, though she had given up
playing, and she might have begun a school as far as her cleverness
went. But she had no savings to furnish a large enough house with, and
she did not know of any pupils. She could not bear the thought of
parting with me, otherwise she might perhaps have gone to be some grand
sort of housekeeper, which even quite, _quite_ ladies are sometimes, or
she might have joined somebody in having a shop. But after a lot of
thinking, she settled she would rather try to live on what she had, in
some quiet, healthy, country place, though I believe she did earn some
money by doing beautiful embroidery work, for I remember seeing her make
lovely things which were never used in our house. This could not have
gone on for long, however, as granny's eyes grew weak, and then I think
she did no sewing except making our own clothes.

Now I must tell you about our home. It was quite a strange place to
grandmamma when we first came there, but _I_ can never feel as if it had
been so. For it was the first place I can remember, as I was only a year
old, or a little more--and children very seldom remember anything before
they are three--when we