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he saluted.
    ‘South Kensington’s an area of London,’ he explained.
    The scouts, over whom Raven exerted a mysterious but direct influence, returned to do the white-painting, and then she was free, refusing any further offers, to arrange the stock herself.
    New books came in sets of eighteen, wrapped in thin brown paper. As she sorted them out, they fell into their own social hierarchy. The heavy luxurious country-house books, the books about Suffolk churches, the memoirs of statesmen in several volumes, took the place that wastheirs by right of birth in the front window. Others, indispensable, but not aristocratic, would occupy the middle shelves. That was the place for the Books of the Car – from Austin to Wolseley – technical works on pebble-polishing, sailing, pony clubs, wild flowers and birds, local maps and guide books. Among these the popular war reminiscences, in jackets of khaki and blood-red, faced each other as rivals with bristling hostility. Back in the shadows went the Stickers, largely philosophy and poetry, which she had little hope of ever seeing the last of. The Stayers – dictionaries, reference books and so forth – would go straight to the back, with the Bibles and reward books which, it was hoped, Mrs Traill of the Primary would present to successful pupils. Last of all came the crates of Müller’s shabby remainders. A few were even second-hand. Although she had been trained never to look inside the books while at work, she opened one or two of them – old Everyman editions in faded olive boards stamped with gold. There was the elaborate endpaper which she had puzzled over when she was a little girl. A good book is the precious lifeblood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life . After some hesitation, she put it between Religion and Home Medicine.
    The right-hand wall she kept for paperbacks. At 1s. 6d. each, cheerfully coloured, brightly democratic, they crowded the shelves in well-disciplined ranks. Theywould have a rapid turnover and she had to approve of them; yet she could remember a world where only foreigners had been content to have their books bound in paper. The Everymans, in their shabby dignity, seemed to confront them with a look of reproach.
    In the backhouse kitchen, since there was absolutely no room for them in the shop itself, were two deep drawers set apart for the Books of the Books – the Ledger, Repeat Orders, Purchases, Sales Returns, Petty Cash. Still blank, with untouched double columns, these unloved books menaced the silent commonwealth on the shelves next door. Not much of a hand at accounts, Florence would have preferred them to remain without readers. This was weakness, and she asked Jessie Welford’s sharp niece, who worked with a firm of accountants in Lowestoft, to come over once a month for a check. ‘A little Trial Balance now and then,’ said Ivy Welford condescendingly, as though it were a tonic for the feebleminded. Her worldly wisdom, in a girl of twenty-one, was alarming, and she would need paying, of course; but both Mr Thornton and the bank manager seemed relieved when they heard that Ivy had been arranged for. Her head was well screwed-on, they said.

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    T HE Old House Bookshop was to open next morning, but Florence did not have it in mind to hold any kind of celebration, because she was uncertain who should be asked. The frame of mind, however, is everything. Given that, one can have a very satisfactory party all by oneself. She was thinking this when the street door opened and Raven came in.
    ‘You’re often alone,’ he remarked.
    He apologized for wearing his waders, and looked round to see what kind of a job the scouts had made of the shelving.
    ‘An eighth of an inch out over there by the cupboard.’
    But she would have no fault found. Besides, now that the books were in place, well to the front (she couldn’t bear them to slide back as though defeated), any irregularities could scarcely be