He had been, as I afterwards learned, a great traveller in his youth, and some six or seven years before this date he married a lady who was half a Spaniard--a papist, my father called her.

I can remember her well.

She was small and very pretty, with a rounded figure, large black eyes, and glittering teeth.

She spoke English with a curious accent.

I suppose that I must have been a funny child to look at, and I know that my hair stood up on my head then as it does now, for I still have a sketch of myself that my mother made of me, in which this peculiarity is strongly marked.