_Her_ arrogance had been beyond all bearing since John, the third son,
had been born.

And it was Frances, after all, who had made him buy West End House for
her own reasons. Both the day nursery and the night nursery had windows
to the south. It was the kind of house she had always dreamed of living
in, and of Michael, or Nicky living in after she and Anthony were gone.
It was not more than seven minutes' walk from the bottom of the lane to
the house where her people lived. She had to think about the old people
when the poor dears had come up to London in order to be thought about.
And it had white storm shutters and a tree of Heaven in the garden.

And, because they had both decided that they would have that house
whatever happened, they began to argue and to tease each other. Anthony
had said it was all right, only the tree of Heaven wasn't a tree of
Heaven; it was a common ash. He was one of the biggest timber merchants
in the country and he ought to know. Frances said she mightn't know
much, but she did know that was the kind of tree the people down in her
part of the country called a tree of Heaven. Anthony said he couldn't
help that. It didn't matter what they called it. It was a common ash.

Then she told him he had no poetry in his composition. She had always
dreamed of having a tree of Heaven in her garden; and he was destroying
her dream. He replied that he didn't want to destroy her dream, but the
tree really _was_ an ash. You could tell by the bark, and by the leaves
and by the number and the shape of the leaflets. And anyhow, that was
the first he'd heard about her dream.

"You don't know," said Frances, "what goes on inside me."