'You must put all those stones out in the garden,' said Mary Clothier.

'Why?' said Edward.

'Because they're garden stones.'

'Why?' said Henrietta.

The twins, Edward and Henrietta Biranne, were nine years old. They were lanky blonde children with identical mops of fine wiry hair and formidably similar faces.

'They aren't fossils. There's nothing special about them.'

'There's something special about every stone,' said Edward.

'That is perfectly true in a metaphysical sense,' said Theodore Gray; who had just entered the kitchen in his old red and brown check dressing-gown.

'I am not keeping the house tidy in a metaphysical sense,' said Mary.

'Where's Pierce?' said Theodore to the twins. Pierce was Mary Clothier's son who was fifteen.

'He's up in Barbie's room. He's decorating it with shells. He must have brought in a ton.'

'Oh God!' said Mary. The sea-shore invaded the house. The children's rooms were gritty with sand and stones and crushed sea-shells and dried up marine entities of animal and vegetable origin.

'If Pierce can bring in shells we can bring in stones,' reasoned Henrietta.

'No one said Pierce could bring in shells,' said Mary.

'But you aren't going to stop him, are you?' said Edward. 'If I'd answered back like that at your age I'd have been well slapped,' said Casie the housekeeper. She was Mary Casie, but since she had the same first name as Mary Clothier she was called 'Casie', a dark pregnant title like the name of an animal. 'True, but irrelevant, Edward might reply,' said Theodore.