4 ЧАСТЬ afternoons, often with a mug of hot chocolate beside her. It was
pleasant to take a hot drink up to her room and have it beside her
as she sat in her silent room reading in the empty house in the after-
noon.
The books transported her into new worlds and introduced her to
wonderful people who lived exciting lives. She went on old sailing
ships with Joseph Conrad.? She went to Africa with Ernest Hemingway
and to India with Rudyard Kipling. She travelled all over the world
while sitting in her little room in an English village.