that, for stiff-lipped pride and brazen boasting, were of a piece with those written by Sentimental Tommy’s mother when things were going worst with her.

“My wine-coloured silk is almost worn out,” she wrote. “I’m thinking of making it over into a tea-gown with one of those new cream pongee panels down the front. Hermie says he’s tired of seeing me in it, evenings. He wants me to get a blue but I tell him I’m too black for blue. Aren’t men stupid about clothes! Though I pretend to Hermie that I think his taste is excellent, even when he brings me home one of those expensive beaded mantles I detest.”

Bald, bare-faced, brave lying.

The two children arrived with mathematical promptness — first