All of them were older than I, to be sure (I was the youngest there by a good deal), but there seemed to be some other separation between us besides that, and besides their being far more clever than I was and knowing much more than I did.

One of them in the first week of my going to the school (I remember it very well) invited me home to a little party, to my great joy.

But my godmother wrote a stiff letter declining for me, and I never went.

I never went out at all.
It was my birthday.

There were holidays at school on other birthdays--none on mine.