hem, he looked at me,
turned furiously red, stammered, stuttered, turned round, and literally
ran away!

I never tried to make him a second present.

IV.

_MY HOME, AND WHAT IT WAS LIKE._

Now, do you know, I feel rather ashamed of myself that I have not all
this while told you in the least who I was, or where I came from. I
began in the middle by saying, "I want to go home," but never told you
in the least where my home was, nor what it was.

Well, to tell you the truth, I did not know much about my family history
in those early days. I knew that my name was Mary Emily Marshall,
commonly called Sissy, and I knew that my papa was "the gentleman that
makes all the sick people well,"--"or tries to," Jane would add. I never
did. Of course, if my papa tried to do anything he did it. That was my
doctrine. We lived quite down in the country among the poor people, and
we were not rich ourselves. Mamma had been born in this beautiful park,
and I know now, though I did not then, that it was a great trouble at
the Park when she married the country doctor, who loved the poor people
so much that he would not leave them to grow rich and honoured as a
London physician. But there was no grandpapa left now to be angry; and
grandmamma, though we had never seen her, we had always loved for the
beautiful presents she sent us.

There were only three of us at this time--my little self; Bobbie, a boy
of four years old, boasting of the fattest, rosiest cheeks in the world;
and wee Willie, the white-faced, fretful baby of six months. Oh, how
well I remember the old house, with its great lamp hanging out over the
lonely road, and shining among the trees, to show the villagers the way
up to their good, kind friend the doctor. Many were the blessings we
little ones used to get as we passed down the village street, and we
owed them all to our father's goodness.

Happy times we had of it, Bobbie and I, in that old house at the top of
the hill. I don't think any little brothers and sisters were ever quite
such good friends. There were three years between us, but I was little
and he was big, so nobody guessed it, and we played together, and never
thought which was the elder. The great treat of the day was the game
with papa in the evening, but that couldn't be counted upon. Very often
he would have to leave the dinner-table suddenly, and when we heard his
peculiar slam of the hall-door before the bell rang to summon us down,
we knew