"It was a lucky coincidence that I had given you a rather detailed account of my home and my bringing up. Not altogether a coincidence, however, as I had previously decided to let you know what I had experienced, and my former confidences had to be the introduction. I therefore ask you to call to mind as much as you can remember; the main points will, I suppose, have given you a distinct impression, even if my description was rather confused, and without it you might judge me much more harshly than I perhaps deserve.
"But let me begin. Ah! I wish you were sitting opposite to me, it is so difficult to write about it.
"I do not know if I told you that my mother had six sisters. They were daughters of a wealthy inn-keeper, whose hostel was chiefly patronised by country people. They all had to take their part in the household duties, and consequently did not get much education. Of family life there was hardly any, as the mother was occupied in the housekeeping, and the father in the business. He sometimes flogged his daughters with the stick, it was nearly their whole education, and it did not bear good fruit. (I am thankful I am writing now.) Five of them had children before they were married, my mother and her younger sister alone being of the opinion that everything was permitted so long as one did not commit that error.
"By such a mother I was brought up, and I clung to her with a great love; for while only a little child I was made her confidante and shared her sorrows, while father never spoke to me. When quite a little girl, I heard her tell her love stories, and I grew up with the idea that one rose in the eyes of other people in proportion to the number of admirers one had.
"Shortly after my confirmation, I renewed acquaintance
