And with good reason, too.

I was the last of a large family--the ugly one; the ill-tempered one; the encumbrance that made it harder than ever to find money enough to pay the household expenses.

My father swore at my mother for being my mother.

She reviled him just as bitterly in return; and vented the rest of her ill-temper on my wretched little body, with no sparing hand.
Bedtime was her time for beating me.

Talk of your mother--not of mine! You were very young, were you not, when she died ?" "Too young to feel my misfortune--but old enough to remember the sweetest woman that ever lived.