Suddenly unable to move, she paused to gaze, unperturbed, at a bramble hooked about the hem of her dress. Just as well it was her old dimity! Despite Aunt Agnes’s bleats about mourning clothes, she had insisted on her practice of wearing the outmoded green dress for her foraging expeditions. The square-cut neckline and bodice fitted to the waist belonged to another time; the full skirts, without the support of the voluminous petticoats they were intended to cover, clung to her willowy figure. She examined the tiny tears the briar thorns had left in the material.

As she straightened, the warmth of the clearing, hemmed in by undergrowth and trees and lit by the sun slanting through the high branches, struck her anew. On impulse, her hands went to her hair, hanging heavy in a bun on her neck. With the restricting pins removed, it fell in a cascade of rich mahogany brown to her waist. Cooler, she resumed her picking.

At least she was confident of what lay in store for herself in London. No amount of effort from her grandmother would be sufficient to win her a husband! Green flashes ran like emeralds through her huge eyes. Her eyes, of course, were her major, and only, asset. All her other points, innocuous in themselves, were disastrously unfashionable. Her hair was dark, not the favoured blonde; her face pale as alabaster and not peaches and cream like Cecily’s. Her nose was well enough but her mouth was too large and her lips too full. Rosebud lips were the craze. And she was too tall and her figure slim against the prevailing trend to voluptuous curves. To cap it all, she was twenty-two, with a strong streak of independence to boot! Hardly the type of female to attract the attention of the fashionable male. With a deep chuckle she popped another ripe berry between her too full lips.