and listened for him, searched the Square with its trees and its
fountain for his presence.

"Wosie, when did he say he'd come next?" But Rose could not tell. There
_were_ times when Rose's impenetrability was, to put it at its mildest,
aggravating.

Meanwhile, the situation with Aunt Emily grew serious. Angelina was
aware that Aunt Emily disliked Rose, and her mouth now shut very tightly
and her eyes glared defiance when she thought of this, but her
difference with her aunt went more deeply than this. She had known for a
long, long time that both her aunts would stop her "dreaming" if they
could. Did she tell them about her friend, about the kind of pictures of
which the fountain reminded her, about the vivid, lively memories that
the tree with the pink flowers--the almond tree--in the corner of the
gardens--you could just see it from the nursery window--called to her
mind; she knew that she would be punished--put in the corner, or even
sent to bed. She did not think these things out consecutively in her
mind, but she knew that the dark room downstairs, the dark passages, the
stillness and silence of it all frightened her, and that it was always
out of these things that her aunts rose.

At night when she lay in bed with Rosie clasped tightly to her, she
whispered endlessly about the gardens, the fountain, the barrel organs,
the dogs, the other children in the Square--she had names of her own for
all these things--and him, who belonged, of course, to the world
outside.... Then her whisper would sink, and she would warn Rose about
the rooms downstairs, the dining-room with the black chairs, the soft
carpet, and the stuffed birds in glass cases--for these things, too, she
had names. Here was the hand of death and destruction, the land of