PAULINE AND PETRONELLA sat side by side. They were in church. They looked up at their father who was preaching. They both had absorbed expressions. Pauline because she was listening to the sermon. Petronella because she had been brought up in a vicarage, and since the age of six had learnt the knack of wearing the look parishioners expect parson’s daughters to have in church. The expression on Petronella’s face had nothing to do with what was in her mind. At the moment she was think­ing of clothes. She had on a green artificial silk frock. Petronella’s was a soul which without training abhorred artificial silks. “Oh, goodness,” she thought, “if only I could have a real heavy crêpe de Chine.”
    Pauline, totally unconscious that her blue frock was not only artificial silk, but faded a little as well, was following every word of her father’s sermon. It was the sort of sermon she liked best. He was preaching on the parable of the grain of mustard seed. “The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in a field; which indeed is the least of all seeds; but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs . . .”
    It is not fun being the plain one of the family. But being the plain one of twins is a wretched position. That’s why parables about grains of mustard seed, which grew up and startled everybody by their magnificence, did Pauline good.