Well, then, I was a happy little girl in those days.
Though my own father, a county lawyer, had died early and left
my dear mother without any means of support for herself and three
children except what she earned by teaching school and music, it
did not make life harder for me, for I had been since I was three
years old with mother's youngest and loveliest sister and her husband.
They were rich and prosperous. They brought me up as their own,
and never had a child a kinder father and mother or a more beautiful
home than I had with my uncle and aunt. Besides, I was naturally
a happy child. Life seemed full of sunshine, and every day dawned
with promise of joy and pleasure. I remember often saying to my
aunt, whom, by the way, I called mother, "I am so happy I don't
know what to do!"
[Illustration: Elizabeth's Mother.]
So I skipped and danced about among the lumber in the sight of
Jacob Riis, till, in sheer amazement, he cut his finger off. _He_
says admiration, not amazement, but I have my own ideas about that.
I see him yet with his arm in a sling and a defiant look, making his
way across the hall at dancing-school to engage me as his partner.
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