We had everything we needed, and almost everything we wanted.

We were welcomed everywhere, petted and praised, abroad as well as at home.

I suppose no little girls with whom we played had a more comfortable sense of being well-off than Fetchke and I."Raphael the Russian's grandchildren" people called us, as if referring to the quarterings in our shield.

It was very pleasant to wear fine clothes, to have kopecks to spend at the fruit stalls, and to be pointed at admiringly.

Some of the little girls we went with were richer than we, but after all one's mother can wear only one pair of earrings at a time, and our mother had beautiful gold ones that hung down on her neck.
As we grew older, my parents gave us more than physical comfort and social standing to rejoice in.