Even to me he was never loving, in the way some fathers are.

He never called me by pet names, nor dandled me on his knee, nor kissed me, nor stroked down my hair and smiled.

Such things I never expected of him, and therefore never missed them; I did not even know that happy children always have them.
But one thing I knew, which is not always known to happier children: I had the pleasure of knowing my own name.

My name was an English one--Castlewood--and by birth I was an English girl, though of England I knew nothing, and at one time spoke and thought most easily in French.
But my longing had always been for England, and for the sound of English voices and the quietude of English ways.

In the chatter and heat and drought of South France some faint remembrance of a greener, cooler, and more silent country seemed to touch me now and then.