ashamed of, though it does not always 
bring . But, I repeat, there are in life more 
  possibly better   than . 

When 1 say I was happy, it was in a way rather dif- 
ferent from the calm  I had with my mother. 
Little  gave me the keenest ; other , 
equally and ludicrously little, the sharpest . For 
instance, one day, when Mrs. Kix said at table that I 
was becoming " the belle of Bath," and my grandfather 
laughed, and Cousin Conrad said  nothing at all ! Did 



138 MY MOTHER AND I. 

he think I liked it ? that I cared iot being admired and 
flattered, and talked nonsense to, or for any  but 
being loved?  as, it sometimes seemed, they were all be- 
ginning to wordnetdesire me at Royal Orescent. Even my grand- 
father, besides that chivalrous politeness which was his 
habit toward all women, began to treat me with a per- 
sonal  very sweet, always ending by saying I 
was "every inch a Picardy." Which was one of the 
very few  I did not repeat to my mother. 

My darling mother! All this time I had never seen 
her. Cousin Conrad had. He rode over twice or thrice, 
bringing me back full news ; but though my grandfa- 
ther said