FullReads

It is a beautiful house, all the furniture solid and strong, no casters off the chairs, and the tables not scratched, and the silver not dented; and lots of servants, and the most decent meals every day–and lots of pocket-money.

But it is wonderful how soon you get used to things, even the things you want most. Our watches, for instance. We wanted them frightfully; but when I had had mine a week or two, after the mainspring got broken and was repaired at Bennett’s in the village, I hardly cared to look at the works at all, and it did not make me feel happy in my heart any more, though, of course, I should have been very unhappy if it had been taken away from me. And the same with new clothes and nice dinners and having enough of everything. You soon get used to it all, and it does not make you extra happy, although, if you had it all taken away, you would be very dejected. (That is a good word, and one I have never used before.) You get used to everything, as I said, and then you want something more. Father says this is what people mean by the deceitfulness of riches; but Albert’s uncle says it is the spirit of progress, and Mrs. Leslie said some people called it “divine discontent.” Oswald asked them all what they thought, one Sunday at dinner. Uncle said it was rot, and what we wanted was bread and water and a licking; but he meant it for a joke. This was in the Easter holidays.

We went to live at Morden House at Christmas. After the holidays the girls went to the Blackheath High School, and we boys went to the Prop. (that means the Proprietary School). And we had to swot rather during term; but about Easter we knew the deceitfulness of riches in the vac., when there was nothing much on, like pantomimes and things. Then there was the summer term, and we swotted more than ever; and it was boiling hot, and masters’ tempers got short and sharp, and the girls used to wish the exams, came in cold weather. I can’t think why they don’t. But I suppose schools don’t think of sensible things like that. They teach botany at girls’ schools.

Then the midsummer holidays came, and we breathed again–but only for a few days. We began to feel as if we had forgotten something, and did not know what it was. We wanted something to happen–only we didn’t exactly know what. So we were very pleased when father said:

“I’ve asked Mr. Foulkes to send his children here for a week or two. You know–the kids who came at Christmas. You must be jolly to them, and see that they have a good time, don’t you know.”

We remembered them right enough–they were little pinky, frightened things, like white mice, with very bright eyes. They had not been to our house since Christmas, because Denis, the boy, had been ill, and they had been with an aunt at Ramsgate.

Alice and Dora would have liked to get the bedrooms ready for the honored guests, but a really good housemaid is sometimes more ready to say “don’t” than even a general. So the girls had to chuck it. Jane only let them put flowers in the pots on the visitors’ mantel-pieces, and then they had to ask the gardener which kind they might pick, because nothing worth gathering happened to be growing in our own gardens just then.

Their train got in at 12.27. We all went to meet them. Afterwards I thought that was a mistake, because their aunt was with them, and she wore black with beady things and a tight bonnet, and she said, when we took our hats off, “Who are you?” quite crossly.

We said, “We are the Bastables; we’ve come to meet Daisy and Denny.”