Can you picture to yourself how anxiously I've watched this child from the first day she came to live with me?
I've scarcely had a thought but about her.

I saw very soon that she had good feelings, and I set myself to encourage them.

I wanted her to be able to read and write, but there was no need of any more education than that; it was the heart I cared about, not the mind.

Besides, I had always to keep saying to myself that perhaps, after all, she wouldn't turn out the kind of woman I wished, and in that case she mustn't be spoiled for an ordinary life.

Sidney, it's this money that has made me a weak old man when I might still have been as strong as many at fifty; the care of it has worn me out; I haven't slept quietly since it came into my hands.