In September the bombers came to London. Only a few nights ago, first with Coventry and then Birmingham, they began their attack on our provincial cities. Bristol or Plymouth, they say, will be next. And it occurs to me, too, how much life has changed and grown pinched since the time I am writing about. Up to the summer of 1940, there was a reasonable plenitude of everything. Petrol rationing provided no great hardship. Food, though partially rationed, remained abundant. You could invite a guest to dinner and never think twice about it. I was thinking of this in connexion with the Monday night in July when Belle Sullivan first came to stay with us. We all fell for her, Tom and Mrs Harping and I. She was what the younger generation calls cute, and her large eyes did damage. Belle’s recuperative powers were amazing. When we first got her home there were, as I expected, signs of delayed shock: cold, vomiting, pulse accelerated yet so faint as to be barely perceptible at the wrist. She could eat very little.
