Sharp was as much a part of English history to me as Henry VIII or Anne
Boleyn or William the Conqueror. When my husband and I were alone he
said: "I think they have picked out No. 21 Curzon Street as the house
where Becky Sharp is supposed to have lived. But what a funny thing for
you to want to see first!"

I remembered what old Lord Steyne had said to Becky: "You poor little
earthen pipkin. You want to swim down the stream with great copper
kettles. All women are alike. Everybody is striving for what is not
worth the having."

I was quite sure I did not want to drift down the stream with copper
kettles. I only wanted to be with Tom, to see England with him, to
enjoy Dr. Johnson's haunts, to go to the "Cheddar Cheese" and the
Strand, to Waterloo Bridge, and down the road the Romans built before
England was England.

I wanted to see the world without the world seeing me. In my heart was
no desire to be a copper kettle. But I had been cast into the stream,
and down it I must go, like a little fungus holding to the biggest
copper kettle I knew.

I told my husband this. It was the first time he had been really
irritated with me. "Why do you worry about these things?" he protested.
"You have a good head and a good education. You are the loveliest woman
in England. Be your own natural self and the English will love you."
But I remembered another occasion when he had told me to be my own
natural sweet self.

"How about what happened to Becky?" I asked.