The playthings were all the property of one or other of my cousins.  The large dolls belonged to Mary and Elizabeth, and the pretty little wax dolls were dressed on purpose for Sophia, who always began to cry the instant I touched them.  I had nothing that I could call my own but one pretty book of stories; and one day as Sophia was endeavouring to take it from me, and I was trying to keep it, it was all torn to pieces; and my aunt would not be angry with her.  She only said, Sophia was a little baby and did not know any better.  My uncle promised to buy me another book, but he never remembered it.  Very often when he came home in the evening, he used to say, “I wonder what I have got in my pocket;” and then they all crowded round him, and I used to creep towards him, and think, May be it is my book that my uncle has got in his pocket.  But, no; nothing ever came out for me.  Yet the first sight of a plaything, even if it is not one’s own, is always a cheerful thing, and a new toy would put them in a good humour for a while, and they would say, “Here, Emily, look what I have got.  You may take it in your own hand and look at it.”  But the pleasure of examining it, was sure to be stopped in a short time by the old story of “Give that to me again; you know that is mine.”  Nobody could help, I think, being a little out of humour if they were always served so:  but if I shewed any signs of discontent, my aunt always told my uncle I was a little peevish fretful thing, and gave her more trouble than all her own children put together.  My aunt would often say, what a happy thing it was, to have such affectionate children as hers were.  She was always praising my cousins because they were affectionate; that was sure to be her word.  She said I had not one atom of affection in my disposition, for that no kindness ever made the least impression on me.  And she would say all this with Sophia seated on her lap, and the two eldest perhaps hanging round their papa, while I was so dull to see them taken so much notice of, and so sorry that I was not affectionate, that I did not know what to do with myself.

Then there was another complaint against me; that I was so shy before strangers.  Whenever any strangers spoke to me, before I had time to think what answer I should give, Mary or Elizabeth would say, “Emily is so shy, she will never speak.”  Then I, thinking I was very shy, would creep into a corner of the room, and be ashamed to look up while the company staid.

Though I often thought of my papa and mamma, by degrees the remembrance of their persons faded out of my mind.  When I tried to think how they used to look, the faces of my cousins’ papa and mamma only came into my mind.

One morning, my uncle and aunt went abroad before breakfast, and took my cousins with them.  They very often went out for whole days together, and left me at home.  Sometimes they said it was because they could not take so many children; and sometimes they said it was because I was so shy, it was no amusement to me to go abroad.