"
"I wish I could make a fortune large enough to buy back Arden Court,"
Clarissa answered eagerly.
"You think so much of Arden?"
"O yes, I am always thinking of it, always dreaming of it; the dear old
rooms haunt me sleeping and waking. I suppose they are all altered now. I
think it would almost break my heart to see them different."
"Do you know, I am scarcely in a position to understand that fervent love
for one's birthplace. I may be said to have no birthplace myself. I
was born in lodgings, or a furnished house--some temporary ark of that
kind--the next thing to being born on board ship, and having Stepney for
one's parish. My father was in a hard-working cavalry regiment, and the
early days of my mother's married life were spent in perpetual wanderings.
They separated, when I was about eight years old, for ever--a sad story,
of course--something worse than incompatibility of temper on the husband's
side; and from that time I never saw him, though he lived for some years.
So, you see, the words 'home' and 'father' are for me very little more than
sentimental abstractions. But with my mother I have been quite happy. She
has indeed been the most devoted of women. She took a house at Eton when
my brother and I were at school there, and superintended our home studies
herself; and from that time to this she has watched my career with
unchanging care. It is the old story of maternal kindness and filial
shortcomings.
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