Ihave no doubt that a lot of my discomfort in Dublin was bought on by my sensitive nature and, probably, things were not so bad as they seemed to me then.

I disliked everything and was determined that I should be very miserable and that everyone would hate me as a poor relation. But they all loved me and said I was the image of grandma Middleton, my mother’s father and, in a big painting of her placed on the dining room wall, I could certainly see a resemblance.

The brooch she wore - I had it on - a tiny amethyst in gold given to her when she was sixteen and at boarding school. Saffory Middleton fell in love with her when he saw the girls walking out two by two and he got to know her by dangling over the wall at the end of the sports ground and he gave her the brooch.

She eventually ran away from school when she was not quite seventeen and he not much older.

I gradually got used to Clarendon - that was the name of my aunt’s house. It stood alone with steps up to the front door in the small town of Rathgar and from my window I could see the Wicklow hills which looked dark and menacing with a blue light on them.

Living away over the hills were my people whom I loved. My father lives forever in my memory. I read his poems over and over again and I know that the crown of literature is poetry - the sublimest activity of the human mind and I loved him with God like devotion.

I lived this life in Ireland at my Aunt’s house with very mixed feelings;sometimes with momentary happiness but mostly in tears. She was very exacting and domineering and it was on me that she generally chose to exercise her moods. I really could not understand her. Probably she behaved as she did to get me out of myself for I had been spoilt at home and was not used to being told that I was not worth my salt.

One day she called me and told me that I must dress and take the joint of beef which had been sent by the butcher with whom she dealt. She said that the meat was no good and that he must send back a better joint than the one we were now gazing upon.

I was dispatched with it wrapped in a parcel and was told to hurry and catch the Rathmines train. It was explained that the shop was between Abbey Street and Grafton Street - I forget where - but anyway I got there, opened up the parcel and said:

“My aunt, Mrs Curtis, says will you please exchange this for a better piece of meat as this one is no good.”

The butcher was a rare old Irishman.

“No good at all - at all - so your aunt says - to be sure. And  

who are you may I ask?”

“I am her niece and come over from England to stay with her.”

“Good gracious me,” he said, “You’ve a task to be after - looking after such a tyrant. It strikes me that she’ll have you pillow and post and everything right must be wrong and vice versa. And what might be the matter with the beef?”

He took it up and cut off a thin slice here and there; patted it with his hands; squeezed a piece of fat on the side, pressed it down and rolled it over.

“Now me dear - you can take that back and she’ll not notice the difference and tell her its fit for His Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales - but she’ll not come any Buckingham Palacing over me - although she gets herself up like the Queen of England and does it well for she’s the spirit of her - the Queen of England and Empress of China - to be sure - to be sure.”

He placed the same piece of beef in my hands and I gave a hearty chuckle.

“I know your Aunt - me dear,” he said,” so never worry. You’ve a job and no mistake - make a face of it, You’ll see how delighted she’ll be when you get back.”

I was not sure. I felt very miserable notwithstanding the gaiety I had just encountered. It was the same piece of beef, after all, and I quite expected it to be throw at my head and I would be called a fool. But, to my astonishment, when I arrived back, my aunt was dressed and her daughter Nola was there - she was rather a nice woman. I said nothing but opened up the parcel and my aunt at once exclaimed:

“Nora, that’s a lovely piece of beef. Why couldn't he have sent that in the first place and saved all the running about?”

We all three sat and gazed at a bloody piece of meat which nauseated me. - when I would have liked to be reading Shelley and dreaming of my home and Brasted Chart with its beautiful woods and dales. It is difficult for me to write in detail all that I suffered in this household. Because they had money and riches and rode out in Broughmams, they assumed the attitude of Lord and Ladies and, although my father had been a professional gentleman, he was considered poor and my mother regarded as a country girl - a farmer’s daughter. In fact her father had owned the Mill at Brasted, Kent.

I loved to think of her as the Miller’s daughter as there was a sentimental song very much sung at those palaces of amusement - such as the Palace of Varieties or the Tivoli in the West end of London - and I often used to hum:

‘She was the Miller’s daughter

And lived beside the Mill’