I Stretched Out My Hand Towards The

I Pulled Myself Up And Told Myself To Stop These Ridiculous Thoughts, Wondering Why It Is That We Can Never Stop Trying To Analyse The Motives Of People Who Have No Personal Interest In Us, In The Vain Hope Of Finding That Perhaps They May Have Just A Little After All.

She Had Always Been An Unashamed Reader Of Novels.

Perhaps There Can Be Too Much Making Of Cups Of Tea, I Thought, As I Watched Miss Statham Filling The Heavy Teapot. Did We Really Need A Cup Of Tea? I Even Said As Much To Miss Statham And She Looked At Me With A Hurt, Almost Angry Look, 'do We Need Tea? She Echoed. 'but Miss Lathbury...' She Sounded Puzzled And Distressed And I Began To Realise That My Question Had Struck At Something Deep And Fundamental. It Was The Kind Of Question That Starts A Landslide In The Mind. I Mumbled Something About Making A Joke And That Of Course One Needed Tea Always, At Every Hour Of The Day Or Night.

The Small Things Of Life Were Often So Much Bigger Than The Great Things . . . The Trivial Pleasure Like Cooking, One's Home, Little Poems Especially Sad Ones, Solitary Walks, Funny Things Seen And Overheard.

Oh, But It Was Splendid The Things Women Were Doing For Men All The Time, Thought Jane. Making Them Feel, Perhaps Sometimes By No More Than A Casual Glance, That They Were Loved And Admired And Desired When They Were Worthy Of None Of These Things - Enabling Them To Preen Themselves And Puff Out Their Plumage Like Birds And Bask In The Sunshine Of Love, Real Or Imagined, It Didn't Matter Which.