that be much fun for her? I shall be a sort of shadow or ghost. I can see myself running Mrs. Trenchard’s errands, hurrying down to be in time for breakfast (although she never scolds anyone), sometimes waking, seeing myself, loathing, despising myself. Ah! Anna would understand ... Anna, even when she laughed, understood ... Anna ... I don’t think I shall send this. I’m determined to drive you all from me until, in a year’s time, I can think of you safely again. I described Moscow to Katherine in the train, and speaking of it, has reminded me ...” * * * * * Katherine could not remember that there had ever been a year since her eighth birthday when she had missed “The Feast” at Rafiel. “The Feast” was held always on the 24th of March, unless that day were a Sunday: it had been held, old Dr. Pybus, the antiquarian of Pelynt, said, ever since Phoenician days. To Katherine the event was the crowning day of the spring. After the 24th there would be, of course, many cold, blustering days: nevertheless the spring, with primroses, violets, anemones thick in the four valleys that ran down to Rafiel, the sky blue with white clouds like bubbles, the stream running crystal-clear over the red soil, the spring was here, and “The Feast” was its crowning. For the fishermen and their families “The Feast” meant a huge tea in the Schools, great bonfires on the Peak, and a dance on the fish-market, a drink at ‘The Pilchards,’ and, above all, for the younger men and women, love and engagements. It was on “The Feast” day that the young men of Rafiel asked the young women whether ‘they would walk out’, and the young women said ‘yes’ or ‘no’ according to their pleasure. On a fine night, with the bonfires blazing to the sky and showers of golden sparks like fire-flies over the quiet sea, there was no happier village in the world than Rafiel. In its little square harbour the stars, and the fires and the amphitheatre-shaped village looked down and the ghosts of the Phoenicians peered over the brow of the hill, sighed for the old times that they once knew, and crept at last, shivering, back into their graves. This was to be the greatest “Feast” that Katherine had ever known, because Philip was, of course, to be with her. It was to be, for them both, the crowning of their love by the place, the soil, the good Glebeshire earth. To Katherine it seemed that if anything untoward happened on this day, it would be as though Glebeshire itself rejected them. She would confess to no one how solemn it seemed to her.... Uncle Tim was in charge of the party. Timothy Faunder had not, for many, many years missed a “Feast”; thither he went, his outward appearance cynical and careless as ever, but obeying, inwardly, more sacred instincts than he would acknowledge. He would be in charge of Katherine, Millie, Philip, Rachel—Henry did not care to go.