Two of the loveliest, sweetest children nature ever formed were always at the Park gates watching for my coming, when they ran to meet me with exclamations of delight, and we wandered forth hand in hand to look for wild fruit and flowers among the bosky dells and romantic uplands of that enchanting spot.
"Alice Mornington and Margaretta Moncton were nearly the same age, born at least within three months of each other, and were six years younger than I.Strikingly different in their complexion, appearance and disposition, the two little girls formed a beautiful contrast to each other.

Alice was exquisitely fair, with large, brilliant, blue eyes, like my poor mother's, and long silken ringlets of sunny hair which curled naturally upon her snow-white shoulders.

She was tall and stately for her age, and might have been a princess, for the noble dignity of her carriage would not have disgraced a court.
"She was all life and spirit.

The first in every sport, the last to yield to fatigue or satiety.

Her passions were warm and headstrong; her temper irritable; her affections intense and constant, and her manners so frank and winning that while conscious that she had a thousand faults, you could but admire and love her.
"A stranger might have thought her capricious, but her love of variety arose more from the exuberance of her fancy than from any love of change.