"Please, if it is not too much trouble," added Bess.
They all looked so eager she could not refuse.
"There is really not much to tell," she said. "Thirty years ago little
girls were not very different from those I see now, though we had not
half so many toys and books.
"This cousin and I lived with our grandmother. Margaret was a year
younger than I, and a delicate child, while I was strong and well
then. My father and mother died when I was a baby, and my
grandmother's house in Philadelphia is the first place I remember.
Margaret did not come to live with us till she was six years old. Her
mother too was dead, and her father spent most of his time abroad. She
used to talk a great deal of her home in the South, for she did not
like the city, but longed for the country and the warm climate she was
used to. I remember the stories she told me after we were in bed at
night. Sometimes they were in rhyme and always about her beautiful
southern home.
"Our grandmother was good to us, but she was strict too, and every day
for an hour we sat beside her learning to sew and knit. Instead of
going to school we had a governess. We took our exercise in the open
square opposite our house, where there were trees and grass, and, best
of all, squirrels.
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