The Project Gutenberg EBook of My Young Days, by Anonymous

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Title: My Young Days

Author: Anonymous

Illustrator: Paul Konewka

Release Date: April 22, 2006 [EBook #18226]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MY YOUNG DAYS ***

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[Illustration: TAKE MINE!]

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MY YOUNG DAYS.

BY THE
AUTHOR OF "EVENING AMUSEMENT," "LETTERS EVERYWHERE," ETC., ETC.

_WITH TWENTY ILLUSTRATIONS BY PAUL KONEWKA._

NEW YORK:
E. P. DUTTON & CO., 713, BROADWAY.
LONDON: SEELEY, JACKSON, & HALLIDAY.
1872.

* * * * *

[Illustration: THE MITTENS.]

* * * * *

CONTENTS.

PAGE

I.--HOME SICKNESS 1

II.--UNCLE HUGH'S STORY 10

III.--THE LITTLE STOWAWAY 21

IV.--MY HOME, AND WHAT IT IS LIKE 33

V.--LITTLE COUSINS 46

VI.--WHAT ABOUT LESSONS 59

VII.--HURRAH FOR THE HOLIDAYS! 76

VIII.--THE COTTAGE ON THE CLIFF 90

IX.--SUSETTE AND HER TROUBLES 108

X.--AUTUMN DAYS 123

XI.--GOOD-BYE TO BEECHAM 137

* * * * *

MY YOUNG DAYS.

I.

_HOME SICKNESS._

"I want to go home!"

How many times in my life, I wonder, have these words come rushing up
from the very bottom of my heart, tumbling everything out of the way,
never listening to reason, never stopping for thought? How many times
since that dreary afternoon in the great, big drawing-room at
grandmamma's? And, oh dear me! what miserable heartache comes before
that fearful want! Oh, grown-up people, don't you know how sour
everything tastes, and how yellow everything looks, and how sick
everything makes one, when one wants to go home?

So it was that one wretched day. How well I remember it all! The large,
large drawing-room so full of cushions, couches, easy-chairs, little
tables covered with funny knick-knacks, marble-slabs and more
knick-kn