"Thirty years ago," began Miss Simmonds, "I was not the faded,
care-worn woman which you now see before you. I was born in this
village. My parents were poor but industrious people. They were blessed
with two children, myself, and a brother, who was two years younger than
I; but, ere he reached the age of ten, we were called to lay him in the
grave, leaving me the sole comfort and joy of my bereaved parents. They
had very much loved my little brother; and, when death claimed him, all
the love which he would have shared with me, had he lived, was lavished
upon me. There is little in my childhood and youth worthy of notice, as
we occupied an humble sphere in life. I suppose you will hardly credit
me, Clara, when I tell you that, at the age of sixteen I was called
beautiful. It was something to which I had given but little thought; but
the ear of youth is ever open to flattery, and I must confess that my
vanity was flattered by being called beautiful by the residents of the
then small village of Littleton.
"When I was about eighteen years of age," continued Miss Simmonds, "a
young lawyer, by the name of Almont, opened an office in this village,
for the practice of his profession.
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