When I was very young, I had the misfortune to lose my mother.  My father very soon married again.  In the morning of the day in which that event took place, my father set me on his knee, and, as he often used to do after the death of my mother, he called me his dear little orphaned Elinor, and then he asked me if I loved miss Saville.  I replied “Yes.”  Then he said this dear lady was going to be so kind as to be married to him, and that she was to live with us, and be my mamma.  My father told me this with such pleasure in his looks, that I thought it must be a very fine thing indeed to have a new mamma; and on his saying it was time for me to be dressed against his return from church, I ran in great spirits to tell the good news in the nursery.  I found my maid and the house-maid looking out of the window to see my father get into his carriage, which was new painted; the servants had new liveries, and fine white ribbands in their hats; and then I perceived my father had left off his mourning.  The maids were dressed in new coloured gowns and white ribbands.  On the table I saw a new muslin frock, trimmed with fine lace ready for me to put on.  I skipped about the room quite in an ecstasy.

When the carriage drove from the door, the housekeeper came in to bring the maids new white gloves.  I repeated to her the words I had just heard, that that dear lady miss Saville was going to be married to papa, and that she was to live with us, and be my mamma.

The housekeeper shook her head, and said, “Poor thing! how soon children forget every thing!”

I could not imagine what she meant by my forgetting every thing, for I instantly recollected poor mamma used to say I had an excellent memory.

The women began to draw on their white gloves, and the seams rending in several places, Anne said, “This is just the way our gloves served us at my mistress’s funeral.”  The other checked her, and said “Hush!” I was then thinking of some instances in which my mamma had praised my memory, and this reference to her funeral fixed her idea in my mind.

From the time of her death no one had ever spoken to me of my mamma, and I had apparently forgotten her; yet I had a habit which perhaps had not been observed, of taking my little stool, which had been my mamma’s footstool, and a doll, which my mamma had drest for me, while she was sitting in her elbow-chair, her head supported with pillows.  With these in my hands, I used to go to the door of the room in which I had seen her in her last illness; and after trying to open it, and peeping through the keyhole, from whence I could just see a glimpse of the crimson curtains, I used to sit down on the stool before the door, and play with my doll, and sometimes sing to it mamma’s pretty song, of “Balow my babe;” imitating as well as I could, the weak voice in which she used to sing it to me.  My mamma had a very sweet voice.  I remember now the gentle tone in which she used to say my prattle did not disturb her.