My mother used to call me her little Spaniard, because of my swarthiness, that is when my father was not near, for such names angered him.

She never learned to speak English very well, but he would suffer her to talk in no other tongue before him.

Still, when he was not there she spoke in Spanish, of which language, however, I alone of the family became a master--and that more because of certain volumes of old Spanish romances which she had by her, than for any other reason.

From my earliest childhood I was fond of such tales, and it was by bribing me with the promise that I should read them that she persuaded me to learn Spanish.

For my mother's heart still yearned towards her old sunny home, and often she would talk of it with us children, more especially in the winter season, which she hated as I do.