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about her and had been so kind. She should be grateful: there had been so much kindness.
    Why, she had a sign of it right under her pillow, which was Mark Lindsay’s handkerchief. He’d said he didn’t want it back, so maybe she should just keep it and put her own name on it? Yes, she’d do that, but now at last she was yawning and drifting, with all the beds around her receding and drifting, too . . . surely soon she would be asleep?
    It occurred to her with sudden jerky clarity that she should, after all, have brought Master Bun to the Lodge as Mrs Hope had advised. She was so used to having him close she might have gone to sleep much more quickly if he’d been with her. Perhaps she’d ask Mrs Hope in her letter to bring him in when she was allowed to visit? She’d have to hide him from Julia, of course, but she could do that . . .
    Suddenly, all thoughts stopped and she was asleep, just a girl amongst others in a dormitory, far away from the world until the rising bell rang in the morning, calling them to another day.

Ten
    Time. Everyone said it had to pass, and pass it did: sometimes slowly, sometimes fast, but never standing still. Even so, Shona could hardly believe that within a few short weeks she would be fifteen. Fifteen! A momentous birthday, which meant that once again her life would change. How, she didn’t as yet know, but sitting beneath the Handkerchief Tree on a fine Saturday afternoon in May, 1923, she knew she’d soon find out.
    Shona had been at Edina Lodge for four years. Four years during which she had moved from a child of eleven, small and anxious, to a girl of almost fifteen, confident and unafraid, her auburn plait replaced by a bob, her pretty face alert to the world around her. And she was tall. Yes, tall, for almost overnight she had seemed to grow like Jack’s beanstalk and, at five foot seven, found it just as wonderful. That she, ‘little’ Shona, should be almost as tall as Archie Smith had been something for her and Cassie to laugh about, for Cassie was tall, too, and both were no longer teased but deeply admired by Archie and his friends. Not that Shona and Cassie were interested in them; they had other things to think about. One was the future.
    If only they could persuade the authorities to help them find some sort of work that really suited, Shona sighed, something that might lead somewhere! But Miss MacLaren had never been hopeful that such a thing would be possible, and Miss Lucas, who had always been willing to listen when she visited the Lodge, was equally sure there could be no change.
    Change had come to her, though, and Miss MacLaren, too, for both had forsaken their jobs to be married: Miss Lucas to a schoolmaster and Miss MacLaren to a businessman. Both were seen no more at Edina Lodge. For a while, Shona had felt quite bereft, for there could be no replacement for Miss Lucas and Miss Bryce’s new assistant seemed still so different from Miss MacLaren. Nothing to be done about the changes, of course, except to put up with them.
    At least, though, the gardens of Edina Lodge had not changed. They were still as beautiful as when Shona had first seen them, looking their best as in that other May, with blossom trees scenting the air, leaves bright with new green buds unfurling almost under her very eyes. And then there was the Handkerchief Tree, covered in its strange, fascinating flowers, holding Shona in thrall, as it always could, being her favourite tree. That was just the same, too.
    She lay back against the bench, putting her hands to her throat for it was so sore, but Matron had said she might wait in the fresh air until someone called her to see the doctor. Not the ‘old’ Dr Lindsay, who was ill at present, but his son, Mark, now qualified, a part of the practice and standing in for his father as the orphanage doctor. Shona, in spite of her painful throat, was smiling to herself as she waited to be called. At present, Dr Mark was busy checking on other patients