Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: 33 CHAPTER III ENGLAND I Was very poorly when I came to London a child of six years. The stories I have been relating are all only faint memories, whispers of the past, or told to me by my dear old nurse and my father. I think losing our mother so soon was the cause of a great deal of unhappiness in our young days, and I think also an especial guardian angel watched over us motherless ones. Well, we three started for England, landed in London, and went straight to our first English home. None of us could speak a word of English, or understood it either. We were taken the round of our many relations and friends, all curious to see the trio, for my mother had been much loved bymany in England. We had not seen our father for some months, as he had been sent on a small diplomatic mission to St. Petersburg. How angry he was when he found us practically three little Germans. At once everything was changed; the old German nurse and maid despatched back at once. It did not make matters much better for us when he saw our tear-stained faces, and heard our voices broken with sobs begging and imploring to go back with them. I shall never forget those first days of loneliness and misery. The German language was forbidden, and English, hateful English, was only to be spoken. My brother in six months was sent to a school at Brighton, kept by the son of my father's doctor (a great friend of his). The first two boys were my brother and the late Lord Lytton. We two girls went to live with a cousin of ours, who was noted for his magnificent collection of famous Dutch pictures. We used to love to wander amongst these beautiful pictures. When not in London we spent our holidays either at his beautiful villa, or atanother place in Kent belonging to my great- uncle and aunt. Lord Beresfor...