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finally in on it, the tide’s beginning to turn. You may not even get over there, Andrew.”
    Aunt Dorothy gave her husband a horrified look. “Oh no, Barclay! Andrew’s only nineteen—he’s too young to go now.” She shuddered. “It will be a blessing if he doesn’t have to at all—and I’m glad you couldn’t, Gerald.”
    â€œI was nineteen,” Uncle Barclay reminded her.
    The colour had left Andrew’s cheeks, and a muscle twitched in one of them. “Perhaps you’re right, Uncle Barclay,” he said slowly. “But Mother is determined that I become an officer.”
    â€œShe’s perfectly right,” said Aunt Florence briskly. “There’s no reason you should join up as a common soldier. But let’s have no more depressing talk about the war. Tell us what your family has been up to, Andrew.”
    Norah had joined Janet in a game of cribbage. She tried to shut her ears to Andrew, but he was such a good storyteller she couldn’t help listening. He was describing his mother’s new volunteer work driving an ambulance. Every time Norah stole a glance at him she noticed how his long hands gesticulated every word: pointing, turning and slicing through the air as if he were conducting music.
    â€œYou’re not paying attention, Norah!” complained Janet. “I said go!”
    Before the younger children were sent to bed, Aunt Florence took out her book. This week it was The Wind in the Willows . Norah had to admit that Aunt Florence was the best reader she’d ever heard. She sank into the story with relief. Andrew was also listening intently, a delighted smile on his face.
    â€œBravo for Toad!” he cried at the end of the chapter. “I remember you reading that when I was about six, Aunt Florence.”
    Andrew got down on the floor, held up his arms as if clutching a steering wheel, and stuck his legs straight outin front of him. “Poop-poop!” he muttered faintly. “Poop-poop!” The younger cousins collapsed with giggles.
    â€œMy dear boy,” said Aunt Florence. “I’d forgotten what a good actor you are.”
    â€œAre you doing many plays?” Aunt Catherine asked.
    â€œAs many as I can!” said Andrew. “I was Prince Henry in our college production of Henry IV this year.”
    He stood up and looked at them silently for a second, his graceful body suddenly regal. His cheek twitched again and, when he spoke, his words were both disdainful and wistful:
    Yet herein will I imitate the sun,
    Who doth permit the base contagious clouds
    To smother up his beauty from the world,
    That, when he please again to be himself,
    Being wanted, he may be more wonder’d at …
    He stopped abruptly, his face flushed. All the family applauded at how easily he had changed from being a conceited toad to a courtly prince.
    All except Norah. Show-off, she muttered under her breath.
    â€œH AVEN ’ T THEY COME back from sailing yet?” Janet asked the next morning. She and Clare and Norah were doing their laundry together at the back of the cottage.
    Norah didn’t answer. She concentrated on scrubbing her blouse against the ripply metal of the scrub-board.This was the only part of being at Gairloch that she disliked. Each of the older girls had to do her own laundry, which meant heating up water, rubbing until your hands ached, and wringing out each piece of clothing to hang up in the sun.
    â€œIt’s my turn to go in the boat next,” said Clare. She shaded her eyes as she gazed out over the lake, then turned to Janet. “Wasn’t it awful when your dad said Andrew should be a soldier right now?”
    â€œHe couldn’t help it,” retorted Janet. “That’s just the way Dad is. All he ever talks about is the First World War and this one.”
    â€œI think Uncle Barclay was right,” said Norah. The other two stopped washing and looked at