a little on one side, pushing out her underlip and drawing it
back again.

Grannie interested Michael; but more when he thought about her than when
she was actually there. She stood for him as the mark and measure of
past time. To understand how old Grannie was you had to think backwards;
this way: Once there was a time when there was no Michael; but there was
Mummy and there was Daddy. And once there was a time when there was no
Mummy and no Daddy; but there was Grannie and there was Grandpapa. Now
there was no Grandpapa. But he couldn't think back far enough to get to
the time when there was no Grannie.

Michael thought that being Grannie must feel like being God.

Before he came to the black window pane and the elder bush he had to run
down the slopes and jump the gullies on his side of the Heath, and cross
the West Road, and climb the other slope to Grannie's side. And it was
not till you got to the row of elms on Judge's Walk that you had to go
carefully because of the funeral.

He stood there on the ridge of the Walk and looked back to his own side.
There were other houses there; but he knew his father's house by the
tree of Heaven in the garden.

* * * * *

The garden stood on a high, flat promontory jutting out into the Heath.
A brown brick wall with buttresses, strong like fortifications on a
breastwork, enclosed it on three sides. From the flagged terrace at the
bottom of the garden you looked down, through the tops of the