and normal request. What are grandmothers for?

Hannah Winter loved the feel of the small velvet hands in her own palm. The clear blue-white of their eyes, the softness of their hair, the very feel of their firm, strong bare legs gave her an actual pang of joy. But a half hour — an hour — with them, and she grew restless, irritable. She didn’t try to define this feeling.

“You say you love the children. And yet when I ask you to be with them for half a day — — ”

“I do love them. But they make me nervous.”

“I don’t see how they can make you nervous if you really care about them.”

Joan was Hannah’s favourite; resembled her. The boy, Peter, was blond, like his mother. In Joan was repeated the grandmother’s