She too was beautiful in the tall, slender, willowy way of youth. She had a figure, though, that would mature well. Her hair was lighter than her sister's - a dark blond highlighted with golden threads that glinted in the sunlight. She had an eager, mobile, lovely face, her best feature being dark blue eyes that often seemed fathomless. For though she was good-natured and almost always cheerful in company, she loved also to be alone, to take solitary walks, to lose herself within her own imagination. She wrote poetry and stories whenever she had the time.

She taught the infants - the children aged four to five - at the village school three days a week and often helped the schoolmaster with older pupils on the other days.

Katherine too was unmarried though she was beginning to feel a little uneasy about her single state. She wanted to marry - of course she did.

What else was there for a woman except to be a burden upon her relatives for the rest of her life? But though she had admirers galore and liked most of them, she could never decide which one she liked best. And that, she realized, probably meant she did not like any one of them sufficiently to marry him.

She had decided that it was sometimes a distinct disadvantage to be a dreamer. It would be far more comfortable to be a practical person without any imagination. Then she could simply choose the best candidate and settle into a worthy life with him. But she could not simply wave a magic wand and make herself into what she was not.

And so she could not make a choice. Not even a sensible one. Not yet, anyway, though the day would come, she supposed, when she would have to decide - or remain forever a spinster - and there would be an end of the matter.

Stephen Huxtable was tall and very slender, not having yet quite grown into his man's body. And yet there was an energy and natural grace about him that saved him from appearing either thin or awkward.