Once in our lives, it is given us to know a truly happy family. Frau Ollinger was tall and luminous and frugal. On a routine patrol of the house Pym once watched her through a crack in a doorway while she slept, and she was smiling. I am sure she was smiling when she died. Her husband fussed round her like a fat tug, upsetting the economy, dumping every waif and sponger on her that he came upon, adoring her. The daughters were each plainer than the next, played musical instruments atrociously, to the fury of the neighbours, and one by one they married even plainer men and worse musicians whom
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