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stories, and then treated me to a biscuit and a cup of tea. I began to understand that neglect might at times mean freedom.

Perhaps it was in order to escape this uncongenial atmosphere that I created for myself a state of continual agony of admiration for some living or dead hero or heroine. This painful enthusiasm would even at times take for object a girl so much older than myself that the occasion to speak to her would never occur. It so happened that one of these disturbing elements left in the middle of the term. Her sudden departure caused me such unhappiness that I found myself for the first time ill in bed in the nursery. On telling my sad story to a friend she wisely remarked that my grief caused her great surprise as she had never seen me with the older girl. I admitted that I had never even spoken to her, and this occasioned such laughter, in which I joined too, that my unhappiness was soon a thing of the past.

There were now in my class several other little girls of my own age. They showed me appreciation by my presents and letters. I accepted these with indifference, for in my case extreme youth disdained extreme youth. Perhaps I already felt the irony of things that permitted sentiments to come and go unrequited.

I was also the favorite of the elderly teacher who kept the schoolroom and taught writing; but her affection was so discreet that I only realised it when I won the much coveted prize for writing. The highest degree of perfection in this copy-book calligraphy lay in the ability to dash on scrolls, flowers and birds with one dash of the pen, the whole making a beautiful and effective ending to one's signature if so desired. This work, remotely connected with drawing, was very soon mastered, and at the end of the year I found myself the proud possessor of a gold pen.