Frank

Viola sighed, for she was to spend the holiday with her parents at Sydenham. She regarded it as her duty to go to them, while they, in their turn, felt they ought to ask her though they would much have preferred to be by themselves. At Christmas, Dulcie thought, people seemed to lose their status as individuals in their own right and became, as it were, diminished in stature, mere units in families, when for the rest of the year they were bold and original and often the kind of people it is impossible to imagine having such ordinary everyday things as parents. Christmas put people in their places, sent them back to the nursery or cradle, almost.