They spoke to me often in a way that made my heart boil, as if they were so many queens, and I was some poor mean wretch who was honoured by being allowed to toil for them.

Then they quarrelled among themselves unceasingly, and of course I had to bear all the bad temper.

I never saw people hate one another like those three did; the sisters even scratched each other's faces in their fits of jealousy, and sometimes they both stormed at their mother till she went into hysterics, just because she couldn't give them more money.

The only one in the house who ever spoke decently to me was the son--Alfred Bolter, his name was.
I suppose I felt grateful to him.

Once or twice, when he met me on the stairs, he kissed me.