Then, suddenly, after midday, the rain came down, splashing on to the shining pavements as it fell, beating on to the windows and then running, in little lines, on to the ledges and falling from there in slow, heavy drops.

The sky was black, the statues in the garden dejected, the almond tree beaten, all the little paths running with water, and on the garden seats the rain danced like a live thing.
The children--Lucy, Roger, Dorothy, Robert, Bim, and Timothy--were, of course, in the nursery.

The nurse was toasting her toes on the fender and enjoying immensely that story by Mrs.Henry Wood, entitled "The Shadow of Ashlydyat." It is entirely impossible to present any adequate idea of the confusion and bizarrerie of that nursery.

One must think of the most confused aspect of human life that one has ever known--say, a Suffrage attack upon the Houses of Parliament, or a Channel steamer on a Thursday morning, and then of the next most confused aspect.

Then one must place them together and confess defeat.