Penny Blood Serial Fiction — page 119: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

ee CHAPTER XI COMMENCEMENT OF LADY BESS’S HISTORY ‘THE earliest period of existence to which my memory can be carried back is connected with this cottage. Here I dwelt in my infancy, with an elderly lady named Mrs. Burnaby, whom I was taught to regard as my grandmother. She was moderately off, and kept one servant. She herself instructed me in the rudiments of education; I was fond of learning, and progressed rapidly under her supervision. She was indeed very kind to me, behaving with all the affec- tion of a near and fond relative. When I was about eight years old, — I remember the incident as well as if it had only ‘occurred yesterday, — Mrs. Burnaby told me that she was going upon a little journey, that she might be absent a couple of days, and that I was to be a very good girl and mind what the female servant said during her absence. ‘She did remain away two days, and it was late in the evening when she returned. She was accompanied by a nurse carrying a little baby, and she told me that this little baby was my brother. I was too young to reflect upon such matters at that time, and therefore I did not think it at all extraordinary. Indeed, all my feelings were those of an enthusiastic joy at having this little brother. It was a wet- nurse who had charge of him, and I was told that his name was Francis. At the expiration of some months — I suppose nine or ten — the wet-nurse went away, and a girl from the neighbourhood was hired to take charge of little Frank. He throve apace, and when he was able to run alone, he became a companion for me. Full well do I remember the childish delight with which I used to lead him when we walked out with Mrs. Burnaby or the nurse-maid; and as years went by and he became more companionable for me 102 Gomichbooks (E(0)