I talked to my sister.

My sister and I would sit in the living room—we joked by calling it the salon—and talk. Living in such a small space was different to our family home, which could be fairly said to sprawl. We didn't mind it much. I didn't mind because I have no great need of space, beyond a case for a modest collection of books. Anna didn't mind because of politics. Leaving behind the trappings of privilege that we were raised with is something that appeals to her.

She was telling me about Fencrofts Prison, because she had met a woman who made it her vocation to visit prisoners there. "The conditions, Victor," she said, "are absolutely barbaric."

I nodded in pleasant agreement. Whilst I have never found it to my taste to engage with the political world, I kept every sympathy with my younger sister. She had few allies back in our village, so somebody needed to support her. At some point that had turned into a kind of support for prison reform, women's suffrage, and the subjugation of all nations that practiced slavery.

From our conversations, I gathered that the last of these opinions was not one shared often by the progressives she dined with and spoke with.