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condemn him for that. It might lead me into condemning others—” She allowed her voice to trail off, as she peeped up at him.
    “Are you hoping for an apology?”
    Sarah’s smile died away. “No,” she said quickly. “No, of course not!”
    “Good, because you’re not going to get one.” He stood there, looking down at her, and she knew he was half hoping that she would smile up at him again, because it fascinated him to watch the procession of emotions that flickered across her face, whereas she would have given anything to veil her thoughts from him.
    Sarah felt herself going red under his gaze. “I—I came to work, Mr. Chaddox,” she reminded him, folding her hands primly in front of her.
    He started, looking disappointed. “All right, Miss Blaney, let’s get on with it!”
    He was very businesslike. Sarah was hard put to it to keep up with him as they went briskly through the pile of letters on the desk. But when he had gone, she found the work easier than she had expected, and the morning flew past on wings. Robert’s housekeeper, Mrs. Vidler, brought her a cup of coffee in the middle of the morning, her deeply tanned face wreathed in smiles.
    “Nice to have a young lady in the house ! Miss Blaney, isn’t it? I’ve heard in the village that your mother is on the stage? And your poor father is sickly? You’ve got your hands full and no mistake! We weren’t a bit surprised that Mr. Robert is taking an interest. There isn’t nothing that happens in the village that he doesn’t deal with. Settling down, are you?”
    “Yes, yes, I am,” Sarah said.
    “That’s right! Find it a bit lonely, I daresay? Not used to country ways, I’ll be bound. Why don’t you come to the Women’s Institute? We have quite a few young ladies who are members.”
    “I don’t know. I hadn’t thought—”
    “I’ll take you,” Mrs. Vidler said firmly. “Thursday afternoon at half-past two, down in the Hall. You don’t have to make up your mind all at once. You can come along as my guest. You’d do better to come along of me, as I’m to do with the Manor, than to wait for anyone else to ask you. It’s as well for them to know that you’ve got Mr. Robert standing behind you. That counts for a lot in these parts.”
    “What about Neil?” Sarah asked, a trifle breathless by the pace of Mrs. Vidler’s conversation.
    “Him? Ah, Mr. Neil is a fine young man, but he’s more on his mother’s side than a real Chaddox. It’s Mr. Robert who has all the responsibility, and quite right too!”
    Sarah sipped her coffee. “I’d like to come to the Women’s Institute with you,” she said, “if my father is well enough to be left.”
    “Ay, he’ll come first with you. You’re a good girl, Miss Sarah. There’s some of us in the village with eyes in our heads!” Mrs. Vidler scooped up Sarah’s empty cup. “Your mother sings, don’t she? Do you do anything of that yourself? It’s the competition, you see. We could do with a hand over that. It’s not much of a choir as it stands, and that’s a fact! ”
    Sarah felt the first stirrings of triumph rise within her. She was being accepted , she thought. She bit her cheek to stop herself from smiling.
    “She’s my stepmother—but I’d like to help, if I can,” she said aloud.
    Mrs. Vidler gave her a satisfied nod. “Thought I wasn’t mistaken,” she said. “We’ll be needing a song. There was some talk of our doing ‘O, for the wings of a dove’, but what we need is something no one heard before. You’ll know all sorts of songs, I dare say. It’ll give us a start to have something new to sing!” And, with these ominous words, she departed, leaving Sarah half delighted and half fearful that she couldn’t possibly live up to the housekeeper’s expectations of her.
    She enjoyed her visit to the W.I. that Thursday. The President was a frail old lady whose hold on the meeting was decidedly shaky, but she received such ardent support from all her members