"Hadrian!" thundered Mr. Pegger. "It's a heathen name. And the young lady too."

"Hadrian and Theodosia."

"They'm not good Christian names."

"Not like your Matthew Mark Luke John Isaac Reuben . . . and the rest. Judith is in the Bible. So I'm all right."

I fell to thinking of names. "Dorcas! Alison!" I said. "Did you know, Mr. Pegger, that Theodosia means divinely given? So you see it is a Christian name. As for Hadrian, he's named after a wall and a Roman Emperor."

"They're not good Christian names," he repeated.

"Lavinia," I said. "I wonder what that means."

"Ah. Miss Lavinia," said Mr. Pegger.

"It was very sad, wasn't it, to die so young?"

"With all her sins upon her."

"I don't think she had many. Alison and Dorcas speak of her as though they loved her dearly."

There was a picture of Lavinia hanging in the rectory on the landing just at the top of the first flight of stairs. I used to be afraid to pass it after dark because I imagined that at night Lavinia stepped out of it and walked about the house. I used to think that one day I would pass it and find the frame empty because she had failed to get back into it in time.

I was such a fanciful child, said Dorcas, who was very practical herself and could not understand my strange imaginings.

"Every mortal man has sins," declared Mr. Pegger. "As for women they can have ten times as many."

"Not Lavinia," I said.

He leaned on his spade and scratched his white mane of hair. "Lavinia! She were the prettiest of the rectory girls."

Well, I thought, that might not have meant a great deal if I was not so familiar with Lavinia's picture, for neither Alison nor Dorcas were exactly beauties. They always wore somber-colored skirts and jackets, and thick strong boots—so sensible for the country. Yet in the picture Lavinia had a velvet jacket and a hat with a curling feather.

"It was a pity she was ever on that train."

"In one moment she had no idea what was about to happen and the next . . . she was facing her Maker."

"Do you think it's as quick as that, Mr. Pegger? After all she would have to get there . . ."

"Taken in sin, you might say, with no time for repentance."

"No one would be hard on Lavinia."

Pegger was not so sure. He shook his head. "She could have her flighty ways."

"Dorcas and Alison loved her, and so did the reverend. I can tell by the way they look when they say her name."

Mr. Pegger had put down his spade to mop his brow once more. "This be one of the hottest days the Lord have sent us this year." He stepped out of the hole and sat down on the curb of the next grave so that he and I were facing each other over the yawning hole. I stood up and peered down into it. Poor Josiah Polgrey who beat his wife and had his children out working on the farm at five years old. On impulse I jumped down into the hole.

"What be doing, Miss Judith?" demanded Mr. Pegger.

"I just want to see what it feels like to be down here," I said.

I reached up for his spade and started to dig.

"It smells damp," I said.

"A fine muss you'll be getting yourself in."

"I'm already in it," I cried, as my shoes slipped down into the loose earth. It was a horrible feeling of being shut in with the walls of the trench so close to me. "It must be terrible, Mr. Pegger, to be buried alive."

"Now you come out of there."

"I'll dig just a bit while I'm here," I said, "to see what it feels like to be a gravedigger."

I dug the spade into the earth and threw out what it had picked up as I had seen Mr. Pegger do. I repeated the operation several times before my spade struck something hard.

"There's something here," I called.

"You come out of there, Miss Judith."

I ignored him and went on probing. Then I had it. "I've found something, Mr. Pegger," I cried. I stooped and picked up the object. "What is it, do you know?"

Mr. Pegger stood up and took it from me. "Piece of old metal," he said. I gave him my hand and he pulled me out of Josiah Polgrey's grave.

"I don't know," I said. "There's something about it."

"Dirty old thing," said Mr. Pegger.

"But look at it, Mr. Pegger. Just what is it? There's a sort of engraving on it."

"I'd throw that away . . . sharp about it," said Mr. Pegger.

But I would do no such thing, I decided. I would take it back with me and clean it. I rather liked it.

Mr. Pegger took up his spade and continued to dig while I tried to wipe the earth from my shoes and noticed with dismay that the hem of my skirt was decidedly grubby.

I talked for a while with Mr. Pegger, then I went back to the rectory carrying the piece of what appeared to be bronze with me. It was oval shaped and about six inches in diameter. I wondered what it would be like when it was cleaned and what I would use it for. I didn't give much thought to it, because talking about Lavinia had made me think about her and what a sad house it must have been when the news was brought that Lavinia, beloved daughter of the Reverend James Osmond and sister of Alison and Dorcas, had been killed in the train which was traveling from Plymouth to London.

"She was killed outright," Dorcas had told me as we stood at her grave while she pruned the roses growing there. "It was a mercy in a way for she would have been an invalid for the rest of her life had she lived. She was twenty-one years old. It was a great tragedy."

"Why was she going to live in London, Dorcas?" I had asked.

"She was going to take up a post."

"What sort of post?"

"Oh . . . governess, I think."

"You think! Weren't you sure?"

"She had been staying with a distant cousin."

"What cousin was that?"

"Oh dear, what a probing child you are! She was a very distant cousin. We never hear of her now. Lavinia had been staying with her so she took the train from Plymouth and then . . . there was this terrible accident. Many people were killed. It was one of the worst accidents in living memory. We were heartbroken."

"That was when you decided to take me in and bring me up to take Lavinia's place."

"Nobody could take Lavinia's place, dear. You have a place of your own."

"But it's not Lavinia's. I'm not a bit like her, am I?"

"Not in the least."

"She was quiet, I suppose, and gentle; and she didn't talk too much, probe or be impulsive or try to order people about ... all the things that I do."

"No, she was not like you, Judith. But she could be very firm on occasions, although she was so gentle."

"So then because she was dead and I was an orphan you decided to take me in. I was related to you."

"A sort of cousin."

"A distant one, I suppose. All your cousins seem to be so distant."

"Well, we knew that you were an orphan and we were so distressed. We thought it would help us all ... and you too of course."

"So I came here and it was all because of Lavinia."

So considering all this I felt that Lavinia had had a marked effect on my life; and I fell to wondering what would have happened to me if Lavinia had not decided to take that particular train to London.

It was cool in the stone hall of the old rectory, cool and dark. On the hall table stood a great bowl of buddleia, lavender, and roses. Some of the rose petals had already fallen onto the stone flags of the hall floor. The rectory was an old house, almost as old as Keverall Court. Built in the early days of Elizabeth's reign it had been the residence of rectors over the last three hundred years. Their names were inscribed on a tablet in the church. The rooms were large and some beautifully paneled but dark because of the small windows with their leaded panes. There was an air of great quietness brooding over the house and it was particularly noticeable on this hot day.

I went up the staircase to my room; and the first thing I did was wash the soil from the ornament. I had poured water from the ewer into the basin and was dabbing it with cotton wool when there was a knock on the door.

"Come in," I called. Dorcas and Alison were standing there. They looked so solemn that I completely forgot the ornament and cried out: "Is anything wrong?"

"We heard you come in," said Alison.

"Oh dear, did I make a lot of noise?"

They looked at each other and exchanged smiles.

"We were listening for you," said Dorcas.

There was silence. This was unusual. "Something is wrong," I insisted.

"No, dear, nothing has changed. We have been making up our minds to speak to you for some time; and as it is your birthday and fourteen is a sort of milestone ... we thought the time had come."

"It is all rather mysterious," I said.

Alison drew a deep breath and said: "Well, Judith . . ." Dorcas nodded to her to proceed. "Well, Judith, you have always been under the impression that you were the daughter of a cousin of ours."

"Yes, a distant one," I said.

"This is not the case."

I looked from one to the other. "Then who am I?"

"You're our adopted daughter."

"Yes, I know that, but if my parents are not the distant cousins, who are they?"

Neither of them spoke, and I cried out impatiently: "You said you came to tell me."

Alison cleared her throat. "You were on the train . . . the same train as Lavinia."

"In the accident?"

"Yes, you were in the accident ... a child of one year or so."

"My parents were killed then."