was, " Look, 
mammy, look !" at every new  ; and as for , 
from the day when I broke my doll till I broke  some- 
 else : only I did not quite break it  my first cry 
was, " Mother  I wordnetdesire my mother !" Day and night 
my only shelter was in her bosom. I remember, and can 
feel still, though I am an old woman, the infinite healing 
of her kiss for all , great and small. 

My mother was quite alone in the world, being, as I 



MY MOTHER AND I. 15 

said, widowed directly after my birth. My father was 
an Indian officer. From his miniature, he must have 
been much handsomer, and I knew he was a year or two 
younger, than herself. The exact circumstances of their 
marriage I never learned. It came probably from what 
I have heard called " the force of propinquity," for they 
must have been very unlike in every way. But they 
were thrown together, he having lodged at the house of 
her parents  he had quarreled with his own  during a 
long and dangerous illness. " He could not do without 
me  so he married me," she once said, with a rather sad 
smile ; and this was the only explanation she ever gave, 
even