says, "To this day I can never see a big white horse in the street
without a sudden sense of indescribable things."*

[* Ibid.]

Of his playmates, "one of my first memories," he writes in the
_Autobiography_, "is playing in the garden under the care of a girl
with ropes of golden hair; to whom my mother afterwards called out
from the house, 'You are an angel'; which I was disposed to accept
without metaphor. She is now living in Vancouver as Mrs. Robert Kidd."

Mrs. Kidd, then Annie Firmin, was the daughter of a girlhood friend
of Mrs. Chesterton's. She called her "Aunt Marie." She and her
sister, Gilbert says in the _Autobiography_, "had more to do with
enlivening my early years than most." She has a vivid memory of
Sheffield Terrace where all three Chesterton children were born and
where the little sister, Beatrice, whom they called Birdie, died.
Gilbert, in those days, was called Diddie, his father then and later
was "Mr. Ed" to the family and intimate friends. Soon after Birdie's
death they moved to Warwick Gardens. Mrs. Kidd writes:

. . . the little boys were never allowed to see a funeral. If one
passed down Warwick Gardens, they were hustled from the nursery
window at once. Possibly this was because Gilbert had such a fear of
sickness or accident. If Cecil gave the slightest sign of choking at
dinner, Gilbert would throw down his spoon or fork and rush from the
room. I have seen him do it so many times. Cecil was fond of animals.
Gilbert wasn't. Cecil had a cat that he named Faustine, because he
wanted her to be abandoned and wicked--but Faustine turned out to be
a gentleman!