While we were talking together, some of the guests strolled out on to the terraces and I saw Roc and Althea Grey walk by the window. They stood for a while looking out over the sea and seemed to be talking earnestly, and the sight of them threw a small shadow over my enjoyment.

It was midnight when several of the guests started to leave, and finally only the Pendorric party remained.

Althea Grey hovered while we said good-bye and congratulated each other on the success of the evening. Then she wheeled my grandfather’s chair to the lift which he had had installed some years before when he had first been aware of his illness, and he went up to his bedroom while we went to our cars.

It was half-past one by the time we reached Pendorric, and as we drove under the old archway to the north portico, Mrs. Penhalligan opened the front door.

” Oh, Mrs. Penhalligan,” I said, ” you shouldn’t have stayed up.”

“Well, madam,” she said, “I thought you’d like a little refreshment before settling down for the night. I’ve got some soup for you.”

” Soup! On a hot summer’s night!” cried Roc.

“Soup! Soup! Glorious Soup!” sang Lowella.

” One of the old customs,” Morwenna whispered to me. ” We can’t escape them if we want to.”

We went into the north hall and Mrs. Penhalligan led the way into the small winter parlour where soup plates had been set out; and at the sight of them Lowella danced round the room chanting: “’ There was a sound of revelry by night’.”

” Oh Lowella, please,” sighed Morwenna. ” Aren’t you tired? It’s after one.”

” I’m not in the least tired,” insisted Lowella indignantly.

“Oh, isn’t this a wonderful ball!”

” The ball’s over,” Roc reminded her.

” It’s not-not till we’re all in our beds. There’s soup to be had before that’s over.”

” You’d better let them sleep late tomorrow, Rachel,” said their mother.

Mrs. Penhalligan came in with a tureen of soup and began ladling it out into me plates.

” It was always like this in the old days,” said Roc. ” We used to hide in the gallery and watch them come in; do you remember, Morwenna?”

Morwenna nodded.

“Who? ” asked Hyson.

“Our parents, of course. We couldn’t have been more than …”

” Five,” said Hyson. ” You’d have to be, wouldn’t you, Uncle Roc? You couldn’t have been more, could you?”

” What memories these children have!” murmured Roc lightly. ” Have you been coaching them. Aunt Deborah? ” “What soup’s this?” asked Lowella.

” Taste it and see,” Roc told her.

She obeyed and rolled her eyes ecstatically. We all agreed that it was not such a bad custom after all, and that although we should not have thought of hot soup on a summer’s night there was something reviving about it and it was pleasant to sit back and talk about the evening.

When we had finished the soup no one seemed in a hurry i go to bed, so

we talked about Polhorgan and the people we had met there, while the twins sat back in their seats, desperately trying to keep awake, looking like daffodils which had been left too long out of water.

” It’s time they were in bed,” said Charles.

“Oh Daddy,” wailed Lowella, “don’t be so old fashioned I”

” If you’re not tired,” Roc pointed out, ” others might be. Aunt Deborah looks half asleep and so do you, Morwenna.”

” I know,” said Morwenna, ” but it’s so comfortable sitting here and it’s been such a pleasant evening I don’t want it to end. So go on talking, all of you.”

“Yes do, quick,” cried Lowella; and everyone laughed and seemed suddenly wide awake. ” Go on. Uncle Roc.”

” This reminds me of Christmas,” said Roc obligingly, and Lowella smiled at him with loving gratitude and affection.

” When,” went on Roc, ” we sit around the fire, longing for our beds and too lazy to go to them.”

“Telling ghost stories,” said Charles.

“Tell some now,” pleaded Lowella. Do, please. Daddy. Uncle Roc. “

Hyson sat forward, suddenly alert.

” Most unseasonable,” commented Roc. ” You’ll have to wait a few months yet, Lo.”

” I can’t. I can’t. I want a ghost story—now!”

“It certainly is time you were in bed,” commented Mor

Lowella regarded me with solemn eyes.

“It’ll be the Bride’s first Christmas with us,” she announced. ” Shell love Christmas at Pendorric, won’t she? I remember last Christmas we sang songs as well as telling ghost stories. Real Christmas songs. I’ll tell you the one I like best.”

“’ The Mistletoe Bough’,” said Hyson.

“You’d like that. Bride, because it’s all about another bride.”

“I expect your Aunt Favel knows it,” said Morwenna. ” Everyone does. “

” No,” I told them, ” I’ve never heard it. You see, Christmas on the island wasn’t quite like an English Christmas.”

“Fancy! She’s never heard of ” The Mistletoe Bough’. ” Lowella looked shocked.

” Think, what she’s missed,” mocked Roc.

“I’m going to be the one to tell her,” declared Lowella. ” Listen, Bride! This other bride played hide and seek: in a place …”

” Minster Lovel,” supplied Hyson.

“Well, the place doesn’t matter two hoots, silly.”

” Lowella,” Morwenna admonished; but Lowella was rushing on. ” They were playing hide and seek and this bride got into the old oak chest, and the lock clicked and fastened her down for ever.”

” And they didn’t open the chest until twenty years later,” put in Hyson. ” Then they found her—nothing but a skeleton.”

“Her wedding dress and orange blossom were all right, though,” added Lowella cheerfully.

” I’m sure,” said Roc ironically, ” that must have been a comfort.”

” You shouldn’t laugh. Uncle Roc. It’s sad, really. ” ‘ A spring lock lay in ambush there ‘,” she sang. ” ‘ And fastened her down for ever’. “

” And the moral of that,” Roc put in, grinning at me, ” is, don’t go hiding in oak chests if you’re a bride.”

” Ugh!” shivered Morwenna. ” I’m not keen on that story. It’s morbid.”

” That’s why it appeals to your daughters, Wenna,” Roc told her.

Charles said: “Look. I’m going up. The twins ought to have been in bed hours ago.”

Deborah yawned.

“I must say I find it hard to keep awake.”

” I’ve an idea,” cried Lowella. ” Let’s all sing Christmas songs for a bit.

Everyone has to sing a different one. “

“I’ve a better idea,” said her father.

“Bed.” Rachel stood up. ” Come along,” she said to the twins. ” It must be nearly two.”

Lowella looked disgusted with us because we all rose; but no one took any notice of her, and we said good night and went upstairs.

The next day I went over to Polhorgan to see how my grandfather was after all the excitement.

Mrs. Dawson met me in the hall and I congratulated her on all that she and her husband had done to make the ball a success. ” Well, madam,” she said, bridling, ” it’s a pleasure to be appreciated, I must say.

Not that Dawson and I want thanks. It was our duty and we did it. “

” You did it admirably,” I told her.

Dawson came into the hall at that moment, and when Mrs. Dawson told him what I had said, he was as pleased as his wife. I asked how my grandfather was that morning.

” Very contented, madam, but sleeping. A little tired after all the excitement, I think.”

” I won’t disturb him for a while,” I said. ” I’ll go into the garden.”

” I’m sending up his coffee in half an hour, madam,” Mrs. Dawson told me.

” Very well then. I’ll wait till then.”

Dawson followed me into the garden; there was something conspiratorial about his manner, I thought; and when I paused by one of the greenhouses he was still beside me.

” Everyone in the house is glad, madam, that you’ve come home,” he told me. ” With one exception, that is.”

I turned to look at him in astonishment, and he did not meet my eyes.

I had the impression that he was determined to be the good and faithful servant, dealing with a delicate situation because this was something I ought to know.

“Thank you, Dawson,” I said. ” Who is the exception?”

” The nurse.”

” Oh?”

He stuck out his lower lip and shook his head.

“She had other notions.”

“Dawson, you don’t like Nurse Grey, do you?”

” There’s nobody in this house that likes her, madam … except the young men. She being that sort. There’s some that don’t look beyond a pretty face.”

I thought it was the usual story of a nurse in the house who was determined to establish the fact that she was superior to the servants. Probably Nurse Grey gave orders in the kitchen, which they did not like. It was not an unusual situation. And now that they knew I was Lord Polhorgan’s grand daughter, they regarded me as the mistress of me house. This was the Dawsons’ way of telling me I was accepted as such. “Mrs. Dawson and I have always felt ourselves to be in a privileged position, madam.

We have been with his lordship for a very long time. “

” But of course, you are,” I assured him.

” We were here, begging your pardon, when Miss Lilith was at home.”

” So you knew my mother?”

“A lovely young lady, and, if you’ll forgive the liberty, madam, you’re very like her.”

” Thank you.”

” That’s why … Mrs. Dawson and I … made up our minds that we could talk to you, madam.”

” Please say everything that’s in your mind, Dawson.”

” Well, we’re uneasy, madam. There was a time when we thought she would try to marry him. There was no doubt that was what she was after. Mrs. Dawson and I had made up our minds that the minute that was decided on we should be looking for another position. “