"Perhaps I've had my share of luck. Did you know that I was found on a train?"

"An abandoned child!"

"Not exactly. It was in an accident. My parents were killed and no one claimed me. I might have gone to an orphanage . . . never have met any of you . . . never have found a piece of a Bronze Age shield and never read any of the books from Giza House."

"I always thought you were the rector's distant cousin."

"Many people did. Dorcas and Alison thought it would be kinder to let it be known that I was some sort of distant relation. But I was unknown. And my great piece of luck was that they took me in and life was wonderful until now. Perhaps I have to pay now for that marvelous piece of luck I had in the beginning. Do you think life works out like that?"

"No," he said. "This is just a phase. They come to all of us. But Theodosia's at Keverall, and she's a friend of yours. She would never be unkind, I'm sure."

"No, but I see little of her. I am always kept so busy dancing attendance on her Mamma."

He gave me a compassionate look.

"Poor Judith," he said, "perhaps it will not always be so. I shall hope things change for you. We must meet . . . often."

"Oh, but the social barriers will be set up between us because when you visit Keverall Court you will come as a guest."

"I should soon leap over any barrier they put between us," he assured me.

He said he would walk with me and I was greatly comforted by his return to St. Erno's.

Hadrian arrived at the end of the week. I was in the garden whither I had been sent to gather roses when he saw me and called to me.

"Judith!" He took my hand and we studied each other.

Hadrian had become good-looking—or perhaps he had always been so and I had not particularly noticed before. His thick brown hair grew too low on his forehead—or did I think it was too low because one of Tybalt's most striking features was his high forehead? There was something inherently pleasant in Hadrian and however bitter he became the twinkle was never far from his blue-grey eyes. He was of medium height and broad-shouldered; and when he greeted me, his eyes always lit up in a manner which I found comforting. I felt that Hadrian was one of the people on whom I could rely.

"You've become a scholar, Hadrian," I said.

"You've become a flatterer. And a companion I To my aunt. How could you, Judith!"

"It's very easily explained. If one does not inherit money one needs to earn it. I am doing precisely that."

"But you a companion! Cutting roses ... I bet you always cut the wrong ones!"

"How right you are! These red ones, I am sure, should have been yellow. But I have the consolation of knowing that had I picked yellow, red would have been the chosen color."

"My aunt's a tyrant! I know. I don't think it's right that you should be doing this. Who suggested it?"

"Your uncle. And we have to be truly grateful to him for had he not arranged that I should come here, I should be cutting roses or performing some such duty for some other tyrant possibly miles from here—so I shouldn't be chatting with you, nor have seen Evan and er . . ."

"It's a shame," said Hadrian hotly. "And you of all people. You were always such a bully."

"I know. It's just retribution. The bully now bullied. Hoist with her own petard. Still, it's pleasant to know that some members of the household don't regard me as a pariah now that I have to perform the humiliating task of earning a living."

Theodosia came into the garden. She was in white muslin with pale blue dots and she wore a white straw hat with blue ribbons. She's grown quite pretty, I realized.

"I was thinking that it's like old times now we're all together," said Hadrian. "Evan and Tybalt ..." I noticed that Theodosia blushed slightly, and I thought of Jane's words. It was true then. No, it couldn't be! Not Tybalt and Theodosia. It was incongruous. But she was almost pretty; she was suitable; and she was an heiress. Surely Tybalt would not marry for money. But of course he would. It was the natural order of things. Sabina had not married for money, for Oliver as rector would have little of that useful commodity. How we had changed, all of us. Frivolous Sabina becoming the rector's wife; plain Theodosia to marry my wonderful Tybalt; and myself, the proud one, the one who had taken charge of the school room, to be the companion whose daily bread was service and humiliation.

"Evan, Tybalt, myself, you, Judith, and Sabina and Oliver in their rectory," Hadrian was saying.

"Yes," said Theodosia. She looked at me rather shyly apologetic because she had seen so little of me since I had come to Keverall Court. "It's . . . it's nice to have Judith here."

"Is it?" I said.

"But of course. You were always one of us, weren't you?"

"But now I am the companion merely."

"Oh, you've been listening to Mamma."

"I have to. It's part of the job."

"Mamma can be difficult."

"You don't have to be with her all the time," comforted Hadrian.

"There seems very little time when I'm not."

"We'll have to change that, won't we, Theodosia?"

Theodosia nodded and smiled.

These encounters lifted my spirits. It was to some extent a return to the old ways.

There was a great deal of talk about the coming ball.

"This will be the biggest we've had for years," Jane told me. "Miss Theodosia's coming out." She gave me her wink. "Timed, you see, when all these people are here. Lady B. is hoping there'll be an announcement before they go off to Egypt."

"Do you think that Mr. Travers would take his bride with him?"

"There won't be time for that by all accounts. There'll have to be the sort of wedding that takes months to prepare for, I reckon. Her ladyship wouldn't stand for anything else. No quiet little wedding like Sabina and the new rector had. Lady B. wouldn't let her only daughter go like that."

"Well," I said, "we haven't got them betrothed yet, have we?"

"Any day now, mark my words."

I began to believe she was right when I talked to Theodosia, who since the return of Hadrian was seeing far more of me than she had before. She seemed as though she wanted to make up to me for previously keeping out of my way.

The only time Lady Bodrean was the least bit affable to me was when she talked of Theodosia's coming out ball; I knew at once that she was hoping to make me envious. Theodosia could have had all the balls she wanted if she had left me Tybalt.

"You might go along to the sewing room," Lady Bodrean told me, "and give Sarah Sloper a hand. There are fifty yards of lace to be sewn onto my daughter's ball gown. And in an hour's time I shall be ready for the reading and don't forget before you go, to walk Orange and Lemon."

Sarah Sloper was too good a dressmaker to allow me to put a stitch into her creation. There it was on the table—a froth of soft blue silk chiffon with the fifty yards of pale blue lace.

Theodosia was there for a fitting, so I helped get her into the dress. She was going to look lovely in it, I thought with a pang. I could imagine her floating round the ballroom in the arms of Tybalt.

"Do you like it, Judith?" she asked.

"The color is most becoming."

"I love dancing," she said. She waltzed round and I felt we were back in the schoolroom. I went to her and bowed. "Miss Bodrean, may I have the pleasure of this dance?"

She made a deep curtsy. I seized her and we danced round the room while Sarah Sloper watched us with a grin.

"How delightful you look tonight, Miss Bodrean."

"Thank you, sir."

"How gracious of you to thank me for the gifts nature has bestowed on you."

"Oh Judith you haven't changed a bit. I wish . . ."

Sarah Sloper had jumped to her feet suddenly and was bobbing a curtsy for Sir Ralph was standing in the doorway watching us dance.

Our dance came to an immediate halt. I wondered what he would say to see the companion dancing so familiarly with his daughter.

He was clearly not annoyed: "Rather graceful, didn't you think, Sarah?" he said.

"Why yes, sir, indeed, sir," stammered Sarah.

"So that's your ball dress, is it?"

"Yes, Father."

"And what about Miss Osmond, eh? Has she a ball dress?"

"I have not," I said.

"And why not?"

"Because a person in my position has no great use for such a garment."

I saw the familiar wag of the chin.

"Oh yes," he said, "you're the companion now. I hear of you from Lady Bodrean."

"Then I doubt you hear anything to my advantage."

I don't know why I was speaking to him in that way. It was an irresistible impulse even though I knew that I was being what would be termed insolent from one in my position and was imperiling my job.

"Very little," he assured me, with a lugubrious shake of the head. "In fact nothing at all."

"I feared so."

"Now do you? That's a change. I always had the impression that you were a somewhat fearless young lady." His bristling brows came together. "I don't see anything of you. Where do you get to?"

"I don't move in your circles, sir," I replied, realizing now that he at least bore me no malice and was rather amused at my pert retorts.

"I begin to think that's rather a pity."

"Father, do you like my gown?" asked Theodosia.

"Very pretty. Blue, is it?"

"Yes, Father."

He turned to me. "If you had one what color would it be?"

"It would be green, Father," said Theodosia. "It was always Judith's favorite color."