For we would still have the tiny pension granted an officer's widow.
And should we always have the pension?
Yes, as long as she lived.
Not "always" then.
A horrible feeling of helplessness, a sense of the bigness of the world and of our littleness, came down upon me.
We seemed to have almost no relations.
We knew our father had a step-sister, a good deal older than he. We heard that she lived in London and was childless. That was all.
My mother had been an orphan. She never seemed to want to talk about the past. When we were little we took no interest in these things. As we grew older we grew afraid of paining her with questions. In some crisis of house-cleaning a photograph came to the surface. Who was this with the hair rolled high and the pear-shaped earrings? Oh, that was Mrs. Harborough.
"Aunt Josephine?"