'Why shouldn't it be?' asked Tommy.

'I don't know. It's just a feeling I have-something to do with time. Time goes at a different pace in different places. Some places you come back to, and you feel that time has been bustling along at a terrific rate and that all sorts of things will have happened-and changed. But here-Tommy-do you remember Ostend?'

'Ostend? We went there on our honeymoon. Of course I remember.'

'And do you remember the sign written up?-TRAMSTILLSTAND-It made us laugh. It seemed so ridiculous.'

'I think it was Knocke-not Ostend.'

'Never mind-you remember it. Well, this is like that word-Tramstillstand-a portmanteau word. Timestillstand nothing's happened here. Time has just stood still. Everything's going on here just the same. It's like ghosts, only the other way round.'

'I don't know what you are talking about. Are you going to stand here all day talking about time and not even ring the bell?'

[Missing]

'Aunt Ada isn't here, for one thing. That's different.' He pressed the bell.

'That's the only thing that will be different. My old lady will be drinking milk and talking about fireplaces, and Mrs. Somebody-or-other will have swallowed a thimble or a teaspoon and a funny little woman will come squeaking out of a room demanding her cocoa, and Miss Packard will come down the stairs, and-'

The door opened. A young woman in a nylon overall said: 'Mr. and Mrs. Beresford? Miss Packard's expecting you.'

The young woman was just about to show them into the same sitting room as before when Miss Packard came down the stairs and greeted them. Her manner was suitably not quite as brisk as usual. It was grave, and had a kind of semi-mourning about it-not too much-that might have been embarrassing.

She was an expert in the exact amount of condolence which would be acceptable.

Three score years and ten was the Biblical accepted span of life, and the deaths in her establishment seldom occurred below that figure. They were to be expected and they happened.