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Lilly Banks and I became friends.

She was the opposite of everything she should have been -- a positive pole in a negative home, a living reaction of warmth and kindness to the harsh reality of her father.

And Lilly's whole family seemed to be an apology for Mr. Banks.

Her brother Karl was a very gentle soul, her mother was a quiet woman who said little but who had hard, probing eyes.

For every rude word of Mr. Banks's the family had five in apology.