"It's strange how it's all turned out so well," I said.

"Like summer after a bad winter," agreed Granny. "Have to remember though, lovey, that winter can and will come again. Tain't natural to have summer all the time."

But I believed that I was going to live in perpetual summer. Only a few trivial matters darkened my pleasant existence. One was when I saw Joe riding through the village with the vet on the way to the Abbas stables. He was standing at the back of the trap and I felt it was an indignity for my brother to ride like a servant. I should have liked to see him riding like a friend of the vet's or an assistant. Better still if he could have ridden in the doctor's brougham.

I still hated those occasions when Mellyora went visiting in her best gown and long white gloves. I wanted to be beside her, learning how to enter a drawing room, how to make light conversation. But, of course, no one invited me. Then again Mrs. Yeo would let me know now and then that for all Miss Mellyora's friendliness I was only a superior servant in the house—on a level with her enemy Miss Kellow, almost, but not quite that. These were small pinpricks in my idyllic life.

And when Mellyora and I sewed our samplers—names and dates in the tiniest cross-stitches which were a trial to me, Miss Kellow allowed us to work our own motto and for mine I chose "Life is yours to make it as you will." And because it was my creed, I enjoyed every stitch. Mellyora chose as hers "Do unto others as you would they do unto you" because she said that if you followed that you must be a good friend to everyone, since you were your own best friend.

I often remember that summer: sitting by the open window as we worked at our lessons, or sometimes under the chestnut tree on the lawn while we stitched at our samplers and talked together to the background music of contented bees in sweet-scented lavender. The garden was full of good smells—the various flowers, the pine trees and warm damp earth mingled with occasional odors from the kitchen. White butterflies—there was a plague of them that summer—danced madly about the hanging purple of the buddleias. I would sometimes try to catch at a moment and whisper to myself "Now. This is now!" I wanted to keep it like that forever. But time was always there to defeat me—passing, inexorably passing; and even as I spoke, that "now" had become in the past. Beyond the hedge I was aware of the graveyard with its tombstones, a constant reminder that time well stand still for none of us; but I always contrived to turn my back on it, for how I wanted that summer to go on! Perhaps it was some intuition on my part, for that summer saw the end of the life in which I had found a comfortable niche for myself.

The year before, Justin St. Larnston had left the University and we saw more of him. Often I would encounter him riding through the village. It was his duty now to help with the estate in readiness for the day when he would become the squire. If Mellyora was with me he would bow courteously and even smile, but his was a rather melancholy smile. When we met him, that made Mellyora's day; she would become prettier and quieter as though occupied with pleasant thoughts.

Kim, who was a little younger than Justin, was still at the University; I thought with pleasure of the days when he would have finished; then perhaps we should see him more often in the village.

One afternoon we were sitting on the lawn with our samplers in our hands. I had finished my motto and had come to the full stop after "will" when Bess ran out onto the lawn. She came straight over to us and cried: "Miss, there be terrible news from the Abbas."

Mellyora turned a Ktde pale and dropped her needlework onto the grass. "What news?" she demanded, and I knew that she was thinking something terrible had happened to Justin.

"Tis Sir Justin. He have collapsed like in his study, they do say. Doctor have been with him. He be terrible bad. Not expected to live, they do say."

Mellyora relaxed visibly. "Who says so?"

"Well, Mr. Belter he did have it from the head groom up there. He says they be in a terrible state."

When Bess went in we continued to sit on the lawn, but we could no longer work. I knew that Mellyora was thinking of what this would mean to Justin. He would be Sir Justin if his father died and the Abbas would belong to him. I wondered if she was sad because she didn't like to hear of illness or perhaps Justin seemed more out of reach than ever.

It was Miss Kellow who had the next news first. She read the announcements each morning because as she implied she was interested to hear of the births, deaths, and marriages in the illustrious families she had served.

She came into the schoolroom, the paper in her hand. Mellyora looked at me and made a little grimace which Miss Kellow couldn't see. It meant "Now we shall hear that Sir Somebody is getting married or has died ... and that she was treated as one of the family when she 'served' them—and how different her life was then before she had sunk to becoming a governess in the impecunious manage of a country parson."

"There's some interesting news in the paper," she said.

"Oh?" Mellyora always displayed interest. Poor Kelly! she said to me often. She doesn't get much fun out of life. Let her enjoy her honorables and nobles.

"There's to be a wedding up at the Abbas."

Mellyora didn't speak.

"Yes," Miss Kellow went on in that maddeningly slow way of hers which meant that she wanted to keep us in suspense as long as possible. "Justin St. Larnston is engaged to be married."

I didn't know I could ever feel someone else's distress so keenly. After all, it was nothing to me whom Justin St. Larnston married. But poor Mellyora, who had had her dreams! Even from this I could learn a lesson. It was folly to dream unless you did something about making a dream come true. And what had Mellyora ever done? Just smiled prettily at him when they passed; dressed with especial care when she was invited to tea at the Abbas! When all the time he had looked upon her as a child.

"Who is he going to marry?" asked Mellyora, speaking very distinctly.

"Well, it seems odd that it should be announced just now," said Miss Kellow, still eager to delay the denouement, "with Sir Justin so ill and likely to die at any moment. But perhaps that is just the reason."

"Who?" repeated Mellyora.

Miss Kellow couldn't hold it back any longer.

"Miss Judith Derrise," she said.

Sir Justin didn't die, but he was paralyzed. We never saw him riding again to the hunt or striding to the woods, his gun over his shoulder. Dr. Hilliard was with him twice a day and the question most asked in St. Larnston was: "Heard how he is today?"

We were all expecting him to die, but he lived on; and then we accepted the fact that he wasn't going to die just yet although he was paralyzed and couldn't walk.

After she had heard the news Mellyora went to her room and wouldn't see anyone—not even me. She had a headache, she said, and wanted to be alone.

And when I did go in she was very composed though pale.

All she said was: "It's that Judith Derrise. She's one of the doomed. She'll bring doom to St. Larnston. It's that I mind."

Then I thought she couldn't have cared for him seriously. He was just the center of a childish dream. I had imagined that her feelings for him were as intense as mine were for rising out of that station in which I had been born.

It couldn't be so. Otherwise she would have cared as much whoever he had arranged to marry. That was how I thought, and it seemed sensible enough to me.

There was no reason why the wedding should be delayed—and six weeks after we saw the announcement it took place.

Some of the St. Larnston people went over to Derrise church to the wedding. Mellyora was on edge wondering whether she and her father would have an invitation but she need not have worried. There was none.

On the day of the wedding we sat in the garden together and were very solemn. It was rather like waiting for someone to be executed.

We heard news through the servants and it occurred to me what a good system of espionage we had. The servants from the parsonage, those from the Abbas and from Derrise Manor, formed a ring and news was passed on and circulated.

The bride had a magnificent gown of lace and satin, and her veil and orange blossom had been worn by numerous Derrise brides. I wondered if the one who had seen the monster and gone mad had worn the veil. I mentioned this to Mellyora.

"She wasn't a Derrise," Mellyora pointed out. "She was a stranger. That's why she didn't know where the monster was kept."

"Have you met Judith?" I asked.

"Only once. She was at the Abbas and it was one of Lady St. Larnston's At Homes. She is very tall, slender, and beautiful, with dark hair and big dark eyes."

"At least she is beautiful; and I suppose the St. Larnstons will be richer now, won't they. She'll have a dowry."

Mellyora turned to me and she was angry, which was rare with her. She took me by the shoulders and shook me.

"Stop talking about riches. Stop thinking of it. Isn't there anything else in the world? I tell you, she'll bring doom on the Abbas. She's doomed. They all are."

"It can't matter to us."

Her eyes were dark with something like fury.

"They are our neighbors. Of course, it matters."

"I can't see how. They don't care about us. Why should we about them?"

"They are my friends."

"Friends! They don't bother much about you. They don't even ask you to the wedding."

"I didn't want to go to his wedding."