triumphantly, 'You are in again!'

Or in the small hours I might make a confidant of my father, and
when I had finished reading he would say thoughtfully, 'That lassie
is very natural. Some of the ways you say she had - your mother
had them just the same. Did you ever notice what an extraordinary
woman your mother is?'

Then would I seek my mother for comfort. She was the more ready to
give it because of her profound conviction that if I was found out
- that is, if readers discovered how frequently and in how many
guises she appeared in my books - the affair would become a public
scandal.

'You see Jess is not really you,' I begin inquiringly.

'Oh no, she is another kind of woman altogether,' my mother says,
and then spoils the compliment by adding naively, 'She had but two
rooms and I have six.'

I sigh. 'Without counting the pantry, and it's a great big
pantry,' she mutters.

This was not the sort of difference I could greatly plume myself
upon, and honesty would force me to say, 'As far as that goes,
there was a time when you had but two rooms yourself - '

'That's long since,' she breaks in. 'I began with an up-the-stair,
but I always had it in my mind - I never mentioned it, but there it
was - to have the down-the-stair as well. Ay, and I've had it this