The world, they felt, and indeed had some reason to feel, was
full of wonderful things--and they were really the sort of people
that wonderful things happen to. So they looked forward to the
summer holiday; but when it came everything was different, and
very, very horrid. Father had to go out to Manchuria to
telegraph news about the war to the tiresome paper he wrote
for--the Daily Bellower, or something like that, was its name.
And Mother, poor dear Mother, was away in Madeira, because she
had been very ill. And The Lamb--I mean the baby--was with her.
And Aunt Emma, who was Mother's sister, had suddenly married
Uncle Reginald, who was Father's brother, and they had gone to
China, which is much too far off for you to expect to be asked to
spend the holidays in, however fond your aunt and uncle may be of
you. So the children were left in the care of old Nurse, who
lived in Fitzroy Street, near the British Museum, and though she
was always very kind to them, and indeed spoiled them far more
than would be good for the most grown-up of us, the four children
felt perfectly wretched, and when the cab had driven off with
Father and all his boxes and guns and the sheepskin, with
blankets and the aluminium mess-kit inside it, the stoutest heart
quailed, and the girls broke down altogether, and sobbed in each
other's arms, while the boys each looked out of one of the long
gloomy windows of the parlour, and tried to pretend that no boy
would be such a muff as to cry.

I hope you notice that they were not cowardly enough to cry till
their Father had gone; they knew he had quite enough to upset him
without that. But when he was gone everyone felt as if it had
been trying not to cry all its life, and that it must cry now, if
it died for it. So they cried.