Читать книгу Mary Boyle, Her Book онлайн

6 страница из 63

M Boyle

A NATIVE OF LONDON

Being a native of London, I am an undoubted Cockney, a circumstance which embittered many of my childish years, and although by no means of an envious disposition, I assuredly envied my sister the privilege of being born in a delightful old Queen Anne’s mansion, in a pretty room, overhanging a broad gravel terrace, the windows of which were embowered with roses, jasmine, and honeysuckle—Balls Park, the home of my uncle, Lord John Townshend—and I have often upbraided my mother for not having selected so delightful a spot for my entrance into the world.^[7]

ssss1.Mary Louisa Boyle, born November 1810, died April 1890.

At the time of my birth, we were in family three girls and two boys—Courtenay, Caroline (Caddy as she was always called), Charles, Charlotte, and myself. But one day, when I was between three and four, my mother asked me if I should not like a live doll to play with? Oh, rapture! Dolls were my passion, but a live doll!—the idea was ecstasy! How well I can recall my first sight of my youngest brother, seated on his nurse’s knee, crowned with one of those quilted contrivances of white satin and rosy pink, that seemed a link between a baby hat of the period and a pudding or bourlet of the olden time. Oh! how I then and there loved my live doll, my brother Cavendish—the little Benjamin of the family!—how I did love him with the love of more than half a century. How I love him still, though we no longer tread the earth together, and how fondly I cling to the hope of a reunion in that region—