I pleased my whims--my whims were my only company--I pleased my whims in building an American castle.

These whims begin to seem childish to me now.

I put in a secret stairway.

No human foot but my own has ever trodden it.

August, whom I love more than any other, and who is one of the few admitted to my library, has always ascended by the rope-ladder.
But you are my niece; I would you were my daughter.