I first knew her as the Queen of the Pirate Isle. To the best of my
recollection she had no reasonable right to that title. She was only
nine years old, inclined to plumpness and good humour, deprecated
violence and had never been to sea. Need it be added that she did
_not_ live in an island and that her name was "Polly."
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
Perhaps I ought to explain that she had already known other
experiences of a purely imaginative character. Part of her existence
had been passed as a Beggar Child--solely indicated by a shawl
tightly folded round her shoulders and chills,--as a Schoolmistress,
unnecessarily severe; as a Preacher, singularly personal in his
remarks, and once, after reading one of Cooper's novels, as an
Indian Maiden. This was, I believe, the only instance when she had
borrowed from another's fiction. Most of the characters that she
assumed for days and sometimes weeks at a time were purely original
in conception; some so much so as to be vague to the general
understanding. I remember that her personation of a certain Mrs.
Smith, whose individuality was supposed to be sufficiently
represented by a sun-bonnet worn wrong side before and a weekly
addition to her family, was never perfectly appreciated by her own
circle although she lived the character for a month. Another
creation known as "The Proud Lady"--a being whose excessive and
unreasonable haughtiness was so pronounced as to give her features
the expression of extreme nausea, caused her mother so much alarm
that it had to be abandoned. This was easily effected. The Proud
Lady was understood to have died. Indeed, most of Polly's
impersonations were got rid of in this way, although it by no means
prevented their subsequent reappearance. "I thought Mrs. Smith was
dead," remonstrated her mother at the posthumous appearance of that
lady with a new infant. "She was buried alive and kem to!" said
Polly with a melancholy air. Fortunately, the representation of a
resuscitated person required such extraordinary acting, and was,
through some uncertainty of conception, so closely allied in facial
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