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the house as to make even callers unwelcome. Often, Mrs. Presleigh, unable to bear even speaking of her loss and drowning in choking waves of grief, would turn away even her own close relatives.
    Finally, they decided to return. The whole purpose of the purchase of the house and the trip had been to launch Roselle in her first London Season. Without Roselle, there was no point to remaining in a city that now seemed hostile and stark.
    So the family removed once again to the road.
    And this time, Belinda kept the drapes of the carriage tightly shut to the sight of the gibbets as they passed them by.

Chapter 3

    Once at home after the long journey where little had been spoken, Belinda was glad that she could escape to the surrounding countryside. And when before she had taken up little notice, she took up even less now as her mother went into deep mourning. Her father, as always, buried himself in his study.
    The war raged on, and though Napoleon's battles may be stark reality to many people, to Belinda, locked away in her little world, they were only distant murmurs.
    She often spent most of the day on the grounds, taking with her a book of poems to read under the shade of a favorite elm. This tree was beyond her father's property and deep into Winterhill, the adjoining estate, into which she often trespassed. But the only one she ever saw there was the gamekeeper, a large, kindly fellow who stopped now and then to have a word with her.
    "How are they at the house?" She would sometimes ask him, merely to make conversation, for her family had the thinnest acquaintance with the family, which consisted of an invitation to the Winterhill annual ball and nothing at all during the rest of the year.
    Belinda knew that her mother had tried countless times to get closer to the Berringtons, but to no avail. She had harbored hopes of an attachment between the heir, Lord Berrington, and her daughter Roselle. Her trip to London had been full of hopes in this direction, for it was rumored that Lord Richard was to be back from the Peninsula in time for the London Season. He had been away for several years.
    The gamekeeper would invariably answer her question thus: "Lord Berrington still out at war, Miss Belinda, and Lady Berrington a bit under the weather."
    "Sure hope Lord Berrington come back soon or he ain't going to find his mother alive." He had said a few weeks later.
    "Oh, but is she so ill?" Belinda had asked alarmed. How had Lady Berrington passed from "a bit under the weather" to such extreme illness in a few weeks? Then Belinda remembered how Roselle had become sick from one day to the next and in a matter of three weeks was gone forever.
    "Well, what is the matter, then?" she asked him.
    "The colic they call it, Miss Belinda, and the doctors ain't doing much for her."
    "I am very sorry to hear that," said Belinda, "Perhaps I should ask Mama to visit her… "
    "She ain't receiving callers anymore, Miss Belinda," said the gamekeeper quickly. "Only relatives have been let in."
    Well, thought Belinda,  her  mother certainly would not be allowed in. Lady Berrington was never "in" for Mrs. Presleigh when she had been in full health, much less now that she was in extreme illness. She would tell her mother, when she returned to the house, in any case. But her mother was still too distressed by her loss. It would be better to leave her be.
    But Belinda had no occasion to do so when she returned to the house late that afternoon, because her Aunt Jenny, her mother's only sister, had arrived for an extended stay and there was an unusual excitement in the air. Belinda was glad for this, for her mother had taken a long time to come out of her grief over Roselle's death. Perhaps Aunt Jenny could help lift her spirits.
    Aunt Jenny had been comfortably established in the household for several weeks now and she and Mrs. Presleigh were now inseparable.
    On her thirteenth birthday, which had been forgotten by everyone, including her mother,