I Decide and Go To Work

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
arm down the black worsted stocking she was darning, looking at me
meditatively the while.

"Well, do you know," she said, "if I were you, my dear, I would write;
for it do seem strange to leave you here, as I may say, all alone."

"Then I will write," I said. "I want to know what I am going 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 my fancy did at
one time go strongly in that direction; but it did not seem so very long
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, and made me promise that I would never
think of being a soldier. And then it seemed as if after that news she
had gradually drooped and faded, just as a flower might upon its stalk,
till two years had gone by, and then all happened as I have related to
you, and I was left pretty well alone in the world.