The square--out of which the right street branches--and the "Gardens"
in the middle of the square to which only privileged persons were
admitted by private key, the basement kitchen and Servants' Hall,
and the two top floor nurseries represented the world to the
child Robin for some years. When she was old enough to walk in the
street she was led by the hand over the ground she had travelled
daily in her baby carriage. Her first memory of things was a memory
of standing on the gravel path in the Square Gardens and watching
some sparrows quarrel while Andrews, her nurse, sat on a bench
with another nurse and talked in low tones. They were talking in
a way Robin always connected with servants and which she naturally
accepted as being the method of expression of their species--much
as she accepted the mewing of cats and the barking of dogs. As
she grew older, she reached the stage of knowing that they were
generally saying things they did not wish her to hear.
She liked watching the sparrows in the Gardens because she liked
watching sparrows at all times. They were the only friends she had
ever known, though she was not old enough to call them friends,
or to know what friends meant. Andrews had taught her, by means
of a system of her own, to know better than to cry or to make any
protesting noise when she was left alone in her ugly small nursery.
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