letters? It was about the time when Blanche was born, when we were
living at Raxley.'

'I am sorry to say that our roving life prevented my keeping old
letters. I have often regretted it. Let me see, there was one who
boxed May's ears.'

'That was long after. I think it was that woman's barbarity that
made my father marry again, and a very good thing that was. It was
wretched before. Miss Headworth was in my own mother's time.'

'I begin to remember something happening that your mother seemed
unable to write about, and your grandmother said that she had been
greatly upset by "that miserable affair," but I was never exactly
told what it had been.'

'Miss Headworth came when I was four or five years old. Edda, as we
used to call her in May's language, was the first person who gave me
a sense of beauty. She had dark eyes and a lovely complexion. I
remember in after times being silenced for saying, "not so pretty as
my Edda." I was extremely fond of her, enough to have my small
jealousy excited when my uncle joined us in our walks, and
monopolised her, turning May and me over to play with his dog!'

'But, Mark, Mr. Egremont is some years older than your father. He
could not have been a young man at that time.'

'So much the worse. Most likely he seemed to her quite paternal.
The next thing I recollect was our being in the Isle of Wight, we two
children, with Miss Headworth and the German nurse, and our being