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I felt that I ought to write to my uncles and cousins, and I consulted

Mrs Beeton about it

Mrs Beeton put her head on one side and tried how far she could get her

ar at me

meditatively the while

"Well, do you know," she said, "if I were you, e to leave you here, as I may say, all alone"

"Then I rite," I said "I want to knohat I a to be"

"Oh! I should be a soldier, like your dear pa was, if I were you," she

said; "and I'd go into a regiment where they wore blue and silver-blue

and silver always looks so well"

"I don't want to be a soldier," I said rather sadly, for ly in that direction; but it did not see

since the news came that my poor father had been killed in a skirmish

with the Indians; and I remembered how my poor mother had thrown her

arms round my neck and sobbed, anda soldier And then it seeradually drooped and faded, just as a flower one by, and then all happened as I have related to

you, and I was left pretty well alone in the world

"I'm sorry you don't want to be a soldier," said Mrs Beeton, looking at