But in the last one hundred years all has changed. Five heads of the family in a row were bad men. They did not take care of their lands. They wasted all the family’s money. At last nothing was left. Nothing except a little land and a two-hundred-year-old house.

“My stepfather saw how things were. He knew he would have to make his own way. So he went to school and became a doctor. Then he went to India.

“In India, Dr. Roylott married my mother. My father had died just the year before. My twin sister, Julia, and I were only two years old when Dr. Roylott became our stepfather.

“My mother had some money—a thousand pounds a year. When she married Dr. Roylott, she made a new will. She left her money to him. The will also said that Roylott must take care of Julia and me.

“My mother died the year we came back to England. Dr. Roylott then took me and Julia to Stoke Moran. My mother’s money was enough for all of us to live on. We could have had a good life.

“But after my mother died, my stepfather was a changed man. He made no friends around his old neighborhood. He would fight anyone he came across.

“Now everyone in the village is afraid of my stepfather. He is as strong as he is crazy. People stay out of his way.

“His only friends are a band of gypsies. He lets these people camp on his land. Sometimes he goes out and visits them in their tents.

“Then there are the wild animals. He brought them from India. There is a cheetah and a baboon. These two animals have the run of the place.

“From the first, my sister, Julia, and I had a very bad time.