more unkind than most parents. Sometimes when I was extra good mother would take me in her arms and call me her "precious," for, as the proverb says, "All have the parent heart." Now, if I had been a boy how different it would have been—there would have been no end of rejoicing and feasting! My mother's parents would have supplied me with a cradle and lots of pretty clothes. When a month old there would have been another feast, and the barber would have come to shave my head and mix the hair with rice and give it to the dog to eat, to make me brave. I should always have had my own way and have been petted by all. When a year old, they would have called my relations together and spread before me a lot of things, to see what my future was to be. There would be books and pens, scissors and scales, a rule, and some money; and they would have waited to see which was the thing I grabbed. If it had been books how it would have pleased them, for it would have meant that I was to be a scholar; if scissors, then a tailor; and so on. Now, I wonder which I should have chosen? Not books, I'm afraid; for I don't like learning—do you?
Well, as I wasn't a boy, I had none of this, so had to be content. As small-pox was very bad, I had a label on my back to say I had already had it (though I hadn't), but that was to deceive the goddesses. Then, to make quite sure, I had a cloth monkey strung round my neck, which made a nice plaything. I am afraid I wasn't always good at night—I am sure you all are!—but cried, for I didn't have enough to eat most of the time; so father got the teacher next door to write a
