Both my parents had died when I was quite a little child; they had lived in India, and I had known very little of their love or care. I had no near relations in England to take me under their protection; I had spent my whole life at school, going for my holidays to the houses of different schoolfellows. I was the heiress to a small fortune of my own, which was managed by an old gentleman in the city who had been left my guardian, and who never came to visit me more than twice a year, when he paid a state call at my school, and sat with me and the head schoolmistress in the grand, chill drawing-room—into which no one ever entered save on the most solemn occasions—for two terrible hours, inquiring into my health, my studies, and my expenses, at the end of which periods I always felt as if I had been for a voyage at sea on the top of an iceberg. Now the one thing wanting in my young life was love. I was a clever girl, and took generally a lion’s share of the prizes in the school for every kind of learning and accomplishment. I was endowed with a fair proportion of good looks, and I had quite as much money allowed me by my guardian as any girl of my age could reasonably desire. I could not say that I wished especially for anything which was not within the reach of my attainment in the circumstances in which I was placed; still, I had a vague consciousness that I did want something, and this something was love. As has been said, I had no near relations, and I was not one of those girls who seem to carry about with them a fairy machine for manufacturing affection wherever they go. My religion was at that time more of a dead form than a living spirit, warming and colouring my whole life; and thus I was wanting in the highest power of all for waking and creating love in those around us. The two ladies who kept our school and the under-governesses were all, in a certain way, proud of me for my cleverness and good looks. But none of them tried to make their way into my heart. They were all somewhat indolent women, and as I did them credit in their school, they gave me my way far more than was good for me, and so fostered the wilfulness which was one of the worst features of my character. My schoolfellows, most of them, liked me to a certain extent; my lively chatter—for I had always a nimble tongue—made me a pleasant companion and an agreeable visitor. At the same time, however, they were all a little afraid of me, on account of the reputation I had for superior mental gifts, and not one among them ever endeavoured to be intimate with me. They went so far in their acquaintance with me—that is, as far as a thick rind of proud reserve which surrounded the inner recesses of my thoughts and feelings would allow; and when they reached this point they were content to remain without the barrier.