As I understood it, this was what she told me. When you first get here, _here_ being the world, you own nothing; and know nothing. Then, as you grow up, you know something but still own nothing. That’s why you’re ordered about and told not to do all the things that you want most to do. You can only please yourself when nobody’s looking and must obey nearly everyone until you get money. There are several ways of getting it, and the pleasantest is sweet-hearting. Here I interrupted her to inquire what was sweet-hearting. “Well,” she said, turning her face away and looking dreamily at John, who was pushing the mower across the lawn, “sweet-heartin’s what you saw me and John doin’.” “Does it always have to be done before breakfast?” She threw back her head and laughed, swaying backwards and forwards. Then she became solemn and answered, “I ’ave to do it before breakfast ’cause I’m a servant. But I does it of evenin’s on my night out.” She went on to tell me that sweet-hearting was the first step towards freedom and money. The second step was a honeymoon, which consisted in going away with a person of the other sex for a week to some place where you weren’t known. When you came back to the people who knew you, they said you were married. So marriage was the third and last step. After that you were given a house, and money, and all the things for which you had always yearned. You had other people, who were like you were before you went sweet-hearting, to take your orders, and run your errands, and say “Sir” or “Madam.” Sometimes when you came back from your honeymoon, you found children in the house. So through that long summer’s afternoon beneath the apple-tree, with the leaves gently stirring and the sound of Ruthita humming across the wall, I gained my first lesson in sexology and domestic economics. It solved a good many problems by which I had been puzzled. For instance, why Uncle Obad had a pony and I hadn’t; why I was sent to bed always at the same hour and my father went only when he chose; why big people could lose their tempers without being wicked, whereas God was always angry when I did it. There was only one thing that I couldn’t understand: why two boys couldn’t go on a honeymoon together, or two girls, and have the same results follow. Except for this, the riddle of society was now solved as far as I was concerned. Marriage seemed a thousand times more wonderful than the magic carpet. I was tremendously interested in the possibilities of sweet-hearting and promised to help Hetty all I could. In return she declared that, when she was married, she would persuade my father to let her take me out of the garden.