A girl in the uniform of a parlourmaid flitted through a door and across the room. His eyes followed her. That was Emm; and he glowed again with satisfaction. He was not a bad squire really ... large hearted and tolerant. Good squire, people would say when he rode by with his daughter. Wild in his day, but a fine master! So many men would not have had Emm in their houses after Harriet had turned her out. Emm! He could laugh at the thought of one starry night when she had run from him and locked the door on him. She had saved her virtue for a young labourer who had promised her marriage and then deserted her. So virtuous little Emm had found herself with child and nowhere to cum. But the squire was a good squire, and Emm would never cease to bless him to the end of her days. He had not said: "Now you see what it is to trust a labourer; better far to trust a squire!" He had never deserted a woman. If there was a child he had seen that it was put out somewhere and a lump sum paid for it. Poor little Emm! What would have happened to her if she had lived in a neighbourhood where the squire was just a squire! But Emm had her baby at the cottage of Jane Lever the midwife, and a man and his wife who had no children looked after it; and Emm came to Haredon to be parlourmaid under Mrs. West.

And she was shapely, a personable enough young woman; and she was grateful to the squire: but not once had he looked in her direction.

That was the man he had become. He was bowing over Mrs. Orland's hand, well pleased with himself and with life. Carolan watched the guests arrive. How lovely the old hall looked, decked out like this, the beautiful dresses of the women, the elegant garments of the men a blaze of colour and lights and beauty! And here was Everard, more elegant, more beautiful than any.

He stood before her, his eyes shining.

"Why, Carolan, you have grown up overnight!”

"That is what everyone is saying. You like the change, Everard?”

"I like it very much.”

She smiled her pleasure.

"The dress is beautiful, is it not?”

"Very beautiful.”

"It cost a good deal, but the squire insisted on my having something really good for my first ball.”

Mrs. Orland came swiftly to them.

"Hello, Carolan! It is going to be a wonderful evening, I am sure. Now Everard, the squire was going to open the ball with Margaret, but he feels unable to and he wants you to do it for him, Everard. Look, dear, do go over to Margaret right away. It is time to start, and the musicians are waiting. I will look after Carolan.”

Everard smiled over his shoulder at Carolan. He was docile always.

"And, Carolan," said Mrs. Orland, 'here is Geoffrey Langley coming over. I know he wants to dance with you. Ah ... Geoffrey, my dear boy, you have come to ask Carolan to dance, have you not?”

Geoffrey Langley, rather portly, middle-aged and bucolic, said he had been coming over to them with just that idea.

"There!" said Mrs. Orland, with the air of one who had worked very satisfactorily on behalf of others.

"You will look after our little Carolan, Geoffrey: this is the dear child's first ball!”

Geoffrey Langley's small eyes smiled appreciatively as he held out his hand.

Now Margaret and Everard were dancing together down the centre of the hall, and other couples were falling in behind them and the fun was beginning.

Geoffrey Langley was not sorry to relinquish his partner to another.

She was an enchanting child but her feet had wings, and his ageing body could not keep up with her frolicking. Her next partner was a young man who told her she was beautiful, and tried to urge her out into the grounds because he was sure there was a wonderful moon. But Carolan wished to stay in the ballroom until Everard came to dance with her; but she was enjoying herself, waiting for Everard. It was fun to note the effect she had on this very young man, particularly when she remembered that last week, riding with him at the hunt, he had not given her a second glance. Oh, what a difference a ball dress can make! So she was coquetting, flirting in as natural a manner as her mother had before her. People glancing her way, noting her brilliant green eyes, her flushed, enchanting little face, thought, There will be trouble there! What is it those women have? The squire must watch out.

But there was in Carolan something neither her mother nor her grandmother had possessed, something more spiritual, less voluptuous; pleasure loving, certainly but something finer too.

The evening was wearing on when Everard found her. There was a faint colour under his skin, and he looked as exasperated as it would be possible for Everard to look.

"Oh, Everard!" she said.

"How nice to see you! I hoped you would come to dance with me before the evening was over.”

There was the faintest reproach in her voice. This evening had taught her that she was not the child, Carolan, waiting to be noticed by grown-ups; she was a woman, to be sought after. That she had learned, and it was intoxicating knowledge.

Everard said: "I have been trying to get to you the whole evening.

There were so many things I had to do. My mother said that, since this is Margaret's dance and the squire suggested I should open it with her in his place, I must dance quite a number of dances with Margaret.

And," he added severely, 'when I did come to you, you were very busily engaged elsewhere.”

The flattery of this to one who, such a short time ago, was but a child in a nursery, bullied by Charles, tormented by Jennifer, whipped and made to realize that she was of no importance whatever, was intoxicating.

"Well," she said, 'could I sit waiting for you all the evening?”

"No," said Everard.

"Let us dance.”

They danced, and all arrogance dropped from her shoulders then; she adored Everard, and this was the great moment of her evening.

"How pretty you are, Carolan! I did not know how pretty until tonight.”

Little waves of pleasure ran all over her. She tossed her head.

"Then it is my gown you find so pretty!" she challenged.

"Your gown! My dear Carolan, I have not looked at it.”

"Ah." she cried.

"Shut your eyes, Everard, and tell me what " it is.”

He closed his eyes; she looked up at him. Oh, he was wonderful beautiful and wonderful! And she had never been as happy in her life as now.

"Blue," he said.

"You are thinking of Margaret!" she told him.

"No," he said, with a seriousness that made her heart beat very fast.

"I am thinking of no one but you. Carolan, when I saw you flirting so outrageously with that young man...”

"Everard! I... flirting!”

"Exactly!" said Everard.

"Flirting! Inviting compliments -perhaps demanding them! Oh, Carolan, what has happened to you? You are different tonight."

 "I am a young woman at her first ball, Everard. Yesterday I was a child in a nursery.”

"Carolan, you alarm me. You are being a little silly tonight.

Carolan.”

"Let me be silly, Everard. I am so happy! I have never had a ball dress before. I have never before been to a ball. Is not a little silliness pardonable?”

"Perhaps," said Everard, 'but it grieves me.”

"Then I will be silly no longer, because I hate to grieve you, Everard.”

"Carolan... you say such things!”

"Everard, you too are different tonight.”

"No," he said, "I am not or if I am it is entirely due to the difference in you. I have been very, very fond of you for a long time.”

"And I of you, Everard.”

"You are not very old, Carolan.”

"You forget... I grew up overnight!”

"Ah! How I wish you had!”

"But you said you were fond of me as I was.”

"Carolan, there are times when you frighten me. You are so impulsive.”

"And you, Everard, are far from impulsive; that is why you do not like that in me.”

"Who said I did not like it? Perhaps it is that I like. Carolan, I had not meant to speak to you tonight__but I am going to, because I must. I am afraid, Carolan.”

"Afraid? Of what?" She looked over her shoulder as though she expected to see something fearful there.

He laughed.

"You baby!" he said.

"I do not like being called a baby," she said with dignity.

"But you are one. And such I will call you if I wish to.”

"Everard, you look most unlike yourself.”

"I have learned something, Carolan. I cannot talk about it in here; let us go outside. Let us go to the summer-house; there we can be alone and talk. Will you come?”

Would she come? She would have followed him to the end of the earth if he asked.

Daintily she picked her way across the grass, lifting the green brocade, feeling not Carolan the child, but a lady who found life intriguing and full of adventure.

Everard shut the door of the summer-house, and when he spoke his gentle voice was hoarse.

"Carolan, I told you that, seeing you tonight, I was afraid.”

"Yes," she said.

"Carolan, dear little Carolan, do you remember when Charles locked you in the vault?”

"Yes, Everard.”

"And I came and found you there, and you lay across my knees and were so frightened? Oh, Carolan, that was when it began... That was when I began to love you.”

"Did you, Everard?”

"Yes. Just as a child then, as a little sister. You were so frightened and I was angry, more angry than I had ever been in my life.”

"You gave him a black eye, and he had such difficulty in explaining!”