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was at least partly responsible for Jane’s flowering as she did. Mamma and Pappa may have been rather like gods, adored, but seen as always a little distant—partly because they were deeply in love, held themselves apart. They enjoyed their children mightily, however, of that there could never be any doubt.
    What did it do in the deepest sense to be brought up in a world like this? And how did the Jane Reid I knew emerge finally as herself from such a patterned background, in essence conventional? It did not happen as revolt, but as I put together the bits and pieces, I have come to believe it happened as simply an overflowing love of life that took her on adventures that stemmed from a vivid response to people and from pressures inside her to feel and experience everything possible. So she was drawn out of the family circle quite naturally without the need to break out, or to deny anything for the sake of something else. For example, she had a good ear and when she was fourteen was given a violin by her Aunt Susan, who had enjoyed hearing her sing, for I have omitted a very important gift in the preceding pages. Jane had a beautiful alto and burst into song whenever she was alone and whenever there was a chance within a group. At school this meant singing in the yearly Gilbert and Sullivan performances, where both her voice and her acting ability, and the fact that she was tall and loved taking men’s parts, gave her the chance at big parts when she was still a child. She felt an instant rapport with her violin and played well enough to be in the school orchestra, but the problem was to find time to practice. How often between the ages of fourteen and sixteen she must have heard some teacher say, “You could do very well, Jane, if you would only concentrate!” But how concentrate when every day brought such an infinity of things one wanted to do? How choose?
    At fourteen she was, one might say, simply a loving, warm young person, a kind of all-round person who might turn out to be one of a hundred things, including a wife. But there was, nevertheless, something that already set her apart from her sisters, something that Mr. Perkins had noted. It was in her eyes, in the way the soul leapt up through their blue, the spell they cast entirely unconsciously, for at fourteen she was far from being a beauty and was too aware of what beauty could be as she observed Edith and Viola. But “spell,” it occurs to me, suggests a sexual attraction … it was not that at all. It was an amazing openness and power to be moved, a power that could be embarrassing, for it might carry her into an explosion of laughter, or a flood of tears, that seemed out of proportion in an adult world, and sometimes got her into trouble.
    It was what delighted Maurice Hadley, a young lawyer who had been invited to dinner to meet Edith. The talk had turned to Sarah Bernhardt, who was playing in Boston, and Jane said, “I would give anything to see her.…” Maurice Hadley saw the blue flame in her eyes, met the intensity of it by chance across the table, and on an impulse said,
    â€œI’ll take you to the Saturday matinee … may I, Mrs. Reid? May I capture your daughter for an afternoon?”
    There was a second’s hesitation as Allegra and James queried each other in a glance.
    â€œOh, please, Mamma, Pappa!”
    â€œI think it would be all right. Maurice can act as a kind of surrogate uncle,” James said with a twinkle in his eye.
    â€œIt is awfully kind of you,” Allegra assented.
    It did seem a little strange that this handsome dark-eyed young man should choose Jane, a little girl, they all felt, but he seemed sincere in his wish to give her a pleasure she wanted desperately. And after all, why not? Snooker beamed.
    â€œThe only trouble is we’ll be living with Sarah Bernhardt for at least a week after you come back,” Edith teased. “Jane can mimic anyone, Maurice, even a