It 's a good deal to ask of a man, especially when he has so little talent as I for being what he is not.

When we were both young together I was the curled darling.

I had the silver mug and the biggest piece of pudding, and I stayed in-doors to be kissed by the ladies while he made mud-pies in the garden and was never missed, of course.

Really, he was worth fifty of me! When he was brought home from Vicksburg with a piece of shell in his skull, my poor mother began to think she had n't loved him enough.

I remember, as she hung round my neck sobbing, before his coffin, she told me that I must be to her everything that he would have been.