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A little later, remembering man's earthly origin, "dust thou art and to dust thou shalt return," they liked to fancy themselves bubbles of earth. When alone in the fields, with no one to see them, they would hop, skip, and jump, touching the ground as lightly as possible and crying, "We are bubbles of earth! Bubbles of earth! Bubbles of Earth!"
From the author's description of her 1880s Oxfordshire childhood in Lark Rise to Candleford, available as a Penguin Modern Classic edition.