And then Julia, making the children love her, herself, as a person. They would all love her in time. Even Burra after her first grief would fling herself upon Julia.... Gertie would not though, ever. Cold, quiet little Gertie, the doctor’s daughter. She would make no response however much she were kissed and called a little darling. Gertie even as a child was the English thing that Julia disliked. Julia, with all her success was not the answer to the problem of why Englishwomen were abominable. She left out so much. “Julia, you know, I think things are more important than people. Much more. People, if you let them for one single instant, grin and pounce upon you and try to make you forget things. But they’re there all the time and you have to go back to them,” and Julia laughing suddenly aloud, “Ah--you’re a duck--a tonic.” And everyone was a little afraid of Julia, the children, the boarders whom she managed so high-handedly with her laughter, even the Pernes. 6 Perhaps Julia’s ‘personal’ way and the English ‘personal’ way were somehow both wrong and horrid ... girls’ schools were horrid, bound to be horrid, sly, mean, somehow tricky and poisonous. It was a hopeless problem. The English sentimental way was wrong, the way of Englishwomen with children--it made them grow up with those treacherous smiles. The scientific and ‘æsthetic’ way, the way of the Putney school--ah, blessed escape!... But it left nearly all the girls untouched. Julia’s sentimental way was better than the English sentimental way; its smiles had tears and laughter too, they were not so hypocritical. But it was wrong. It was the strongest thing though in the Wordsworth House school. 7 Julia was not happy. She dreamed fearful dreams.... Why did she speak of them as if they were something that no one in this English world into which she had come would understand? She had her strange nights all to herself there across the landing; either lying awake or sleeping and moaning all the time. The girls in her room slept like rocks and did not know that she moaned. They knew she had nightmares and sometimes cried out and woke them. But passing the open door late at night one could hear her moaning softly on every breath with closed lips. That was Julia, her life, all laid bare, moaning.... She knows she is alive and that there is no escape from being alive. But it has never made her feel breathless with joy. She laughs all day, at everybody and everything, and at night when she is naked and alone she moans; moan, moan, moan, heart-broken; wind and rain alone in the dark in a great open space.