“But when I thought of one of my sisters, I used to want to die. If she had been there we should both have yelled, without moving a muscle of our faces. Harriett is perfect for that. We learnt it in church. But when she used to twist all the fingers of her gloves into points, under the seat, and then show them to me suddenly, in the Litany.” …
“What? What is this? No. Tell me. You were very happy with your sisters.”
“That’s all. She waggled them, suddenly.”
“A happy childhood is perhaps the most -fortunate gift in life.”
“You don’t know you’re happy.”
“That is not the point. This early surrounding lingers and affects all the life.”
“It’s not quite true that you don’t know. Because you know when you are quite young how desperately you love a place. The day we left our first home I remember putting marbles in my pocket in the nursery, not minding, only thinking I should take them out again by the sea , and downstairs in the garden I suddenly realised, the sun was shining on to the porch and bees swinging about amongst the roses, and I ran back and kissed the warm yellow stone of the house, sobbing most bitterly and