Miriam emerged smoothly into the darkness and lay radiant. There was nothing but the cool sense of life pouring from some inner source and the deep fresh spaces of the darkness all round her. Perhaps she had awakened because of her happiness ... clear gentle and soft in a melancholy minor key a little thread of melody sounded from far away in the night straight into her heart. There was nothing between her and the sound that had called her so gently up from her deep sleep. She held in her joy to listen. There was no sadness in the curious sorrowful little air. It drew her out into the quiet neighbourhood ... misty darkness along empty roads, plaques of lamplight here and there on pavements and across house fronts ... blackness in large gardens and over the bridge and in the gardens at the backs of the rows of little silent dark houses, a pale lambency over the canal and reservoirs. Somewhere amongst the little roads a group of players hooting gently and carefully slow sweet notes as if to wake no one, playing to no one, out into the darkness. Back out of fresh darkness came the sweet clear music ... the waits; of course. She rushed up and out heart foremost, listening, following the claim of the music into the secret happy interior of the life of each sleeping form, flowing swiftly on across a tide of remembered and forgotten incidents in and out amongst the seasons of the years. It sent her forward to to-morrow sitting her upright in morning light telling her with shouts that the day was there and she had only to get up into it ... the little air had paused on a tuneful chord and ceased ... It was beginning again nearer and clearer. She heard it carefully through. It was so _strange_. It came from far back amongst the generations where everything was different; telling you that they were the same.... In the way those people were playing, in the way they made the tune sound in the air neither instrument louder than the others there was something that _knew_. Something that everybody knows.... They show it by the way they do things, no matter what they say.... Her heart glowed and she stirred. How rested she was. How fresh the air was. What freshness came from everything in the room. She stared into the velvety blackness trying to see the furniture. It was the thick close-drawn curtains that made the perfect velvety darkness ... Behind the curtains and the Venetian blinds the windows were open at the top letting in the garden air. The little square of summer garden showed brilliantly in this darkest winter blackness. It was more than worth while to be wakened in the middle of the night at the Brooms. The truth about life was in them. She imagined herself suddenly shouting in the night. After the first fright they would understand and would laugh. She yawned sleepily towards an oncoming tangle of thoughts, pushing them off and slipping back into unconsciousness. 5