If I quickly
outgrew my fancies, if I had quite done with anything or anybody that
had absorbed me a little while before, she would say, with a smile:
"Last year, when I was a little boy, the hobby-horse amused me."
Still, progress was not always smooth. When I was small I had pretty
blouses, one especially, grey, with brown worsted lace upon it, that I
was fond of wearing; now I had plain, flat blouses with a leather belt
round the waist. Later on, I was ambitious to have a jacket, like big
boys, and when this wish had been gratified there awoke in me, as
happens in life, a more lofty ambition still, that to wear a frock coat.
In the fulness of time an old frock coat of my father's was altered to
fit me. I looked thin and lank in it, but the dress was honourable. Then
it occurred to me that everybody would see I was wearing a frock coat
for the first time. I did not dare to go out into the streets with it
on, but went out of my way round the ramparts for fear of meeting
anyone.
When I was a little boy I did not, of course, trouble much about my
appearance. I did not remember that my portrait had been drawn several
times. But when I was nine years old, Aunt Sarah--at that time everybody
was either uncle or aunt--determined that we brothers should have our
portraits taken in daguerreotype for Father's birthday.
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