"There now, my dear, sit down and listen. I'll soon be getting weak,
and I must tell everything tonight. Years ago, Cecile, afore ever I
met yer father, I was married. My husband was a sailor, and he died
at sea. But we had one child, one beautiful, bonnie English girl;
nothing foreign about her, bless her! She was big and tall, and fair
as a lily, and her hair, it was that golden that when the sun shone
on it it almost dazzled you. I never seed such hair as my Lovedy's,
never, never; it all fell in curls long below her waist. I _was_
that proud of it I spent hours dressing it and washing it, and
keeping it like any lady's. Then her eyes, they were just two bits of
the blue sky in her head, and her little teeth were like white
pearls, and her lips were always smiling. She had an old-world
English name taken from my mother, but surely it fitted her, for to
look at her was to love her.
"Well, my dear, my girl and me, we lived together till she was near
fifteen, and never a cloud between us. We were very poor; we lived by
my machining and what Lovedy could do to help me. There was never a
cloud between us, until one day I met yer father. I don't say as yer
father loved me much, for his heart was in the grave with your
mother, but he wanted someone to care for you two, and he thought me
a tidy, notable body, and so he asked me to marry him and he seemed
well off, and I thought it 'ud be a good thing for Lovedy. Besides, I
had a real fancy for him; so I promised.
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