She returned to England, and the bitter tears she shed at parting were the last I saw flow for love of me for many years.

My grief was terrible: I had no friend but her in the whole world.

By degrees I became reconciled to solitude but no one supplied her place in my affections.

I lived in a desolate country where ------ there were none to praise And very few to love.[A] It is true that I now saw a little more of my aunt, but she was in every way an unsocial being; and to a timid child she was as a plant beneath a thick covering of ice; I should cut my hands in endeavouring to get at it.

So I was entirely thrown upon my own resourses.