I really believe that both Jane and Mammy sincerely hoped to eradicate my besetting sin, by such blunt remarks as the former; but no course could have been less wise than the one which they took.  I knew very well that I was neither a fright, an Indian, nor a cannibal; and the pains which they took to convince me to the contrary led me to give myself credit for much more beauty than I really possessed.  I also regarded amiability as a virtue of very small account; and supposed that those who practised it, only did so because they possessed neither beauty, grace, nor anything else to recommend them.

A great source of annoyance to me was my dress.  As I was an only daughter, some mothers, with the same means, would have enhanced my attractions with all the aid of ornament, and established me as a permanent divinity of the drawing-room, whom all must bow to and flatter as they entered its precincts.  But, although fond of display, and surrounded with all the appliances of wealth, the taste of my parents never did run much on dress; and I often felt mortified at my inferiority to others in this respect.  Such articles were then much dearer, and more in vogue than at the present day, and a blue Circassian formed my entire stock of gala dresses, and went the rounds of all the children’s parties I attended; my mother seemed to think, (with respect to me, at least,) that as long as a dress was clean and in good repair, there was no need of a change—­she left nothing to the pleasure of variety.  There appeared to be an inexhaustible store of the same material in a certain capacious drawer; did an elbow give out, a new sleeve instantly supplied its place—­did I happen to realize the ancient saying:  “There’s many a slip ’twixt the cup and the lip,” and make my lap the recipient of some of the goodies provided for us at our entertainments, the soiled front breadth disappeared, and was replaced by another, fresh and new—­did the waist grow short, it was made over again—­there verily seemed to be no end to the dress; I came to the conclusion that blue Circassian was the most ugly material ever invented, and often found myself calculating how many yards there might be left.

My school hats always looked the worse for wear, and my Sunday ones were not much better; but once my mother took me to the city, and bought me, for school, a far handsomer hat than I had hitherto worn for best, and a still better one for great occasions.  Here I, who scarcely ever looked decent about the upper story, actually had two new hats at once!  The best one, I remember, was a round gipsy flat, then altogether the fashion; and the first Sunday I put it on I made a perfect fool of myself by twisting my hair in strings, intended to pass for natural ringlets, and allowing said strings to hang all around beneath the brim of my hat.  Mamma was sick and confined to her room, and I managed to appear at church with this ridiculous head-gear.  People certainly stared a little, but this my vanity easily converted into looks of admiration directed towards my new hat, and perhaps also my improved beauty—­and came home more full of self-complacency than ever.