Father and the moon seem part of each other as I remember that night, and both seem to belong to the night, and so did I. Father had taken us on a steamer for an excursion. The steamer ran onto a rock off Cadboro Bay. We were stuck there for hours hoping the high tide would float us off. When it did not, and the night got late, we were put ashore in…

We played ladies with a girl called Rhoda. There were six little girls, three in Rhoda’s family and three in ours. So we could have a father, a mother, two children (a good one and a bad one) and a visitor or a servant. But the only one of us who could act a first-rate mock swoon was Rhoda. She had a colourless pale face and was lean, with a faraway, languishing look…

I was not always polite, not always biddable. The monotony bored me. I despised the everlasting red tape, the sheep-like stupidity. What one did, all did, and because they always had done such and such it meant that they always must. Doctor McNair was a pretty good sort, if a bit pompous to her underlings, and a bit servile to her superior. Doctor Sally Bottle, I frankly despised for a toady. She licked…