as a rule on the side of emptiness, I realized that there was
going to be a party. I felt like the child who said, "There's
been a wedding, I smell rice!" One knows these things by
instinct.

The butler solemnly informed me that there was going to be a
party, and that Miss Hyacinth would be down in a moment.

I thought it odd that Zerlina should have said nothing about a
party; but then she never says anything about measles, or
whooping-cough, or re-painting rooms, until I am within the doors
and unable to escape. I remembered she had urged me on this
occasion to come early. I sat down on a sofa and sadly fixed my
gaze on the parquet floor. How different had been my arrival at
Hames! My conscience smote me. I had no train, no cooking stove,,
no woolly rabbit in my box. But then neither was there a Hugh,
Betty, and Sara. At Hames should I have sat in the drawing-room?
Never! Of course I know what some people will say: that it is my
fault; if I had treated the children as I treated Betty, Hugh, and
Sara, it would have made all the difference; but it wouldn't,
really. It is, the mother of the children who makes the
difference; it is her attitude to the aunt which is adopted by the
children. If Diana had been out, the house would have resounded
with shrieks for Aunt Woggles. But in Zerlina's house children
never shriek, people never rush to the nursery. The children are
always tidied before they are brought down to see me.

Of course some people will again say, "Quite right"; and it is
quite right that for such people they should be tidied; but do
those people realize what a wall tidiness builds between child and