(11/13) Celebrations at Thrush Green by Miss Read

they all seem to dwell on Father's disciplinary side, and it makes him appear in rather a harsh light. I hoped they would discuss his fine mind, his interest as astronomy and photography. After all, he founded several scientific clubs at the school, and was most generous with gifts to the science side. I remember him handing over his own microscope and an auxanometer.'
    'And what's that?'
    'Well, dear, I rather forget, but I've an idea it measures the growth of plants. Father was a great botanist as well as everything else. I must say, I am rather disgusted with these old boys' narrow views.'
    'Then I shouldn't use them,' said Ella stoutly. 'Just finish your notes and publish them privately.'
    Dotty looked more cheerful at this gleam of hope for her cherished work. 'I am sure you are right, Ella. And now let me make you a drink. Some of my lime-flower tisane, or a cup of Nescafé?'
    'I think Nescafé,' said Ella, who had tried Dotty's concoctions too often for comfort.
    A quarter of an hour later she left Dotty sorting out her papers, and stepped out into the bleak world.
    A few flakes of snow were fluttering down, and by the time she emerged from the field path on to Thrush Green, a whirling mass of snowflakes gave promise of a white world before morning.

    From her hospital bed Winnie watched the snowstorm spreading a carpet of white and shaking the trees in the grounds.

    It made a strange contrast with the over-heated room, heavy with the mingled scent of flowers, floor polish and disinfectant.
    On her locker stood the bouquet from Dorothy and Agnes, and another from Jenny. More flowers lined the windowsills and a side table, and Winnie thought how lucky she was to have so many loving friends.
    Among other things on the locker top stood a glass screw-top jar containing a number of dark objects ranging in size from walnuts to peppercorns. Winnie had screened this from her own gaze by propping up a large 'get-well' card in front of it, for it was a gruesome reminder of Mr Philip Paterson's (St Thomas's) successful surgery a few days earlier, and Winnie felt she could not face its presence much longer.
    Winnie's first impulse had been to beg her nurse to throw the lot in the hospital dustbin, but when several colleagues burst in to look at the jar with awe and delight, she felt unequal to the effort. When the surgeon visited her that evening she hoped that he would remove the revolting jar, but he was even more delighted than the nurses at the result of his skills.
    'Do you think,' said Winnie faintly, 'that they could be thrown away now that I've seen them?'
    Mr Paterson clutched the jar to him, as a mother might clutch her baby. 'But surely you want to take them home?'
    The very thought sent a wave of nausea through poor Winnie, but as a doctor's wife she did her duty. 'I think you did a wonderful job,' she said, 'and I shall always be grateful. But I cannot have those ghastly things here any longer.'
    Mr Paterson appeared astounded. 'Well,' he said, looking deeply hurt, 'I'll leave them where they were on the locker, in case you change your mind, and you can have a look later. After supper, say. I believe you are having a little fish soup tonight.'
    He gave his usual comforting smile and departed.
    Really a charming fellow, thought Winnie, and so conscientious with his night and morning visits.
    Nevertheless, she resolved to get one of the nurses to dispose of the jar, and if she and the other girls complained of such ruthlessness it was just too bad.
    As for Philip Paterson, he would have to endure the loss of his handiwork with all the fortitude of a true St Thomas's man.

    The snowstorm raged for over twenty-four hours, leaving the Cots wolds in a white shroud.
    The dry-stone walls surrounding the fields had disappeared beneath drifts, leaving vast expanses of unbroken snow, reminiscent of the steppes of Russia or the awesome wastes of Antarctica. The steep roofs were covered, and all the stone house walls which faced