Chapter Three: The Holmes of the BaskervillesLike many of the girls in Spitalfields, Raffles had no idea what date her birthday fell upon. She had a vague notion that she might have been born in 1750, but that was as specific as she was able to be. It was for this reason that Raffles decided that, like Queen Victoria, she rather liked the idea of having two birthdays each year, and for this purpose she had chosen Boxing Day (or, as she called it, St Stephen's Day) and, a little bizarrely, Pancake Day. Therefore, Raffles celebrated her birthday on both December the 26th and the Tuesday before the first day of Lent, the exact date of which changes each year depending on when Easter falls.
Because she celebrated two birthdays a year, when I enquired after her age during that December of 1866
