Of course Aunt Grace and Angela were the first to arrive. ‘Trust them!’ muttered Francis getting up from the sofa with a charming smile of welcome and going to open the door.

Angela was already standing tiptoe on the step, peeping (she always peeped) in through the top of the door. Her eyes were wide open with excitement and she curled her fingers on either side of her ears and waggled them at Francis in greeting. She looked very pretty in a dark green suit; Sophia glanced down dryly at her own uncleaned brogues and worn tweed skirt. She felt lumpy, dowdy and superior, and wished it were time to begin on the prawns.

‘Here we are – here we are, all starving hungry and longing to see the little home!’ cried Aunt Grace, kissing Francis. ‘Why, Sophia, dear, we haven’t seen you for ages.’

‘Oh, Sophia, what a thrilling place!’ cried Angela. ‘Oh, isn’t it the wee’est, wee’est little house that ever was! Oh, what’s that little door over the fireplace? Does it open? Is it a secret panel or something romantic like that?’

‘It isn’t anything,’ said Francis glumly.

‘But surely it must open?’

And Angela picked at it with one pink fingernail, looking over her shoulder at Francis.

‘No, it doesn’t. It’s just nothing.’

Sophia then took Angela and Aunt Grace upstairs to take off their hats and coats, and only smiled forbearingly when Angela said that the cottage reminded her of Pooh’s House; and Aunt Grace, laying her hand upon her niece’s shoulder, whispered:

‘Don’t you think, you funny girl, you might have put on something a little lighter and prettier for your party? Your little home is so nice, dear, that you ought to want to look nice, too. We all like to see our girl looking pretty, you know.’

Sophia thought vengefully about the prawn, and made no reply beyond an enigmatic grin. It was a really frightening grin, which seemed to look out from deserts where Aunt Grace could never venture, and Sophia was quite pleased with it. Aunt Grace, somewhat alarmed, turned away to the long mirror which gave depth to Sophia’s tiny bedroom and began to tidy her hair. It occurred to her that her dead brother-in-law, Sophia’s father, had really been very eccentric indeed.

The arrival of Uncle Preston and Auntie Loo in a small brand-new car next created an enormous diversion and excitement. No one had known that they were even thinking of buying one.

Uncle Preston was rather worried about the car. It was either not going as fast as it could, or it knocked, or the windscreen wiper was jammed or something; Sophia, who was bored by cars, could not make out quite what was up with it, but something was. Auntie Loo sat inside, looking a little stunned by her new grandeur, but evidently pleased to be there, and carefully holding on her lap a parcel pinned up in brown paper.

Presently Aunt Maxine arrived, in a perfectly square black hat which looked quite meaningless upon her head as though it had been wafted there by a frolic wind, and a taxi. She spent a brisk four minutes having a row with the taximan in which she was worsted, and vented her feelings by giving a tremendous dab on the cottage door knocker.