I have always lived with Aunt Martha -- my parents died when I was a baby . Aunt Martha says I am to be her heiress if I please her -- which means -- but , oh , you do not know what `` pleasing '' Aunt Martha means . Aunt is a determined and inveterate man-hater . She has no particular love for women , indeed , and trusts nobody but Mrs. Saxby , her maid . I rather like Mrs. Saxby . She is not quite so far gone in petrifaction as Aunt , although she gets a little stonier every year . I expect the process will soon begin on me , but it has n't yet . My flesh and blood are still unreasonably warm and pulsing and rebellious . Aunt Martha would be in danger of taking a fit if she ever saw me talking to a man . She watches me jealously , firmly determined to guard me from any possible attack of a roaring and ravening lion in the disguise of nineteenth-century masculine attire . So I have to walk demurely and assume a virtue , if I have it not , while I pine after the untested flesh-pots of Egypt in secret . We have come down to spend a few weeks at Fir Cottage . Our good landlady is a capacious , kindly-souled creature , and I think she has rather a liking for me . I have been chattering to her all day , for there are times when I absolutely must talk to someone or go mad . July Tenth . This sort of life is decidedly dull . The program of every day is the same . I go to the sandshore with Aunt Martha and Mrs. Saxby in the morning , read to Aunt in the afternoons , and mope around by my disconsolate self in the evenings . Mrs. Blake has lent me , for shore use , a very fine spyglass which she owns . She says her `` man '' brought it home from `` furrin ' parts '' before he died .
While XXXXX and Mrs. Saxby meander up and down the shore , leaving me free to a certain extent , I amuse myself by examining distant seas and coasts through it , thus getting a few peeps into a forbidden world .
Aunt blood creature danger heiress parents roaring self times virtue