So I will begin this chapter by saying that our father's name is John Henry Marjoribanks, and he is a clergyman. Mother died just a year ago. I don't like writing about it, but I think I must. It was such a horrible, awful time. We were very poor, for father was only a curate then, and mother could not afford a thick winter jacket. She cut down hers for me—I hate the very sight of it now—and then she went out one bitterly cold night to see a sick woman, and she came back shivering. And then she got—I really can't spell it, but I know it begins with a 'p' which you don't pronounce. It means inflammation of the lungs—and we had to have a nurse, which cost a lot of money. And none of us were allowed to see her until the last day, when she asked for us, to wish us good-bye. I won't write any more; it makes me cry; we did love mother so. But she told me to try to take her place, for I was the eldest daughter. And I feel I never, never shall, for I'm so forgetful, and can't sit still, and hate needlework. And I laugh at the most solemn kind of things; anybody can make me laugh, and they know it. Poor father got graver and graver, and Mrs. Glass, our rector's wife, was horrid; she kept interfering so. We always hated her little girls. They were prigs (I think I would rather be a convict than a prig!), and they were always so superior to us. "Your father has to do what our father tells him," they said one day when we were fighting with them. "And if he doesn't, he'll be sent away." They seemed to think father was a kind of servant. So we told them what we thought of them, and after that we didn't speak to each other for five whole days. And then the glorious news came at breakfast by the post. Father was going to be the Rector of Warlington, and that meant a church of his own, and a house of his own, and a move. A move is the most splendid thing, we all think. We have had two before, and we would like one every year. This one wasn't quite so nice as usual, because mother wasn't at it. And Aunt Caroline came to see to it. We love the way the house gets more and more untidy, and the last day, when we have to eat our meals off boxes, and everything is in the most hopeless muddle, and the rooms get emptier and emptier, and no one has time to look after us—it is simply ripping! But I can't stop to describe this move of ours, because it is all over, and I want to hurry on to where we are now. Aunt Caroline came to settle us in, and she's with us now. She's father's sister, and very kind, but a little fussy, we think. She says she feels she never ought to have her needle out of her hand, because we tear our clothes so. We had to come a very long way by train, because we had been living near London, and our new home is in Lincolnshire. We got so tired that we were all asleep when we arrived. Perhaps I had better describe ourselves before I describe the house, and then I shall be able to begin my story quite properly.