CHAPTER VI.
DRESS AND MANNER--I EXAMINE MYSELF--MY GREAT-GRANDMOTHER.
When we began our biographies we resolved that neither of us should read the other's till both were finished.

This was partly because we thought it would be more satisfactory to be able to go straight through them, partly as a check on a propensity for beginning things and not finishing them, to which we are liable, and partly from the childish habit of "saving up the treat for the last," as we used--in "old times"-- to pick the raisins out of the puddings and lay them by for a _bonne bouche_ when we should have done our duty by the more solid portion.
But our resolve has given way.

We began by very much wishing to break it, and we have ended by finding excellent reasons for doing so.
We both wish to read the biographies--why should we tease ourselves by sticking obstinately to our first opinion?
No doubt it would be nice to read them "straight through." But we are rather apt to devour books at a pace unfavourable to book-digestion, so perhaps it will be better still to read them by bits, as one reads a thing that "comes out in numbers." And in short, at this point Eleanor took mine, and has read it, and I have read hers.

She lays down mine, saying, "But, my dear, you don't remember all this ?" Which is true.

What I have recorded of my first English home is more what I know of it from other sources than what I positively remember.
And yet I have positive memories of my own about it, too.
I have hinted that my poor young mother did not look after me much.