'I quite fret and worry myself about her, ' said Mrs Chick, with a sigh of modest merit. 'I really don't see what is to become of her when she grows older, or what position she is to take.

Then one day, his younger brother wanted to live separate from him, living his own life, as many normal people do.

"He grew up in a family who didn't do a lot of hugs and kisses and 'I love you's, and that does bother me," says Ney, a freelance journalist in Boise, Idaho.