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here, so you can get whatever it is now.'
    'I won't bother,' Marion answered hastily, 'it's only my hairband, I left it in the dining room.'
    'And after Mr Harland took the trouble to return it to you,' the housekeeper reproached her. 'Though I must say I like your hair free myself, like you've got it now.'
    Marion half hoped Mrs Pugh would offer to get the hairband for her, but she did not seem to have any further business in the dining room that evening, and when Marion went to look for her property the next morning it was not there. Neither was her drawing. She frowned, nonplussed, and then her face cleared. Perhaps their daily help had tidied it away. She was a great one for tidying things away.
    'I expect it'll be on my bed,' Marion decided with relief. That was where their daily usually put odds and ends she could not identify, and left Marion to sort out their owners. Everything from a gold bracelet to half a gum-boot had found its way there dining the last twelve months. But when she went up to her bedroom to get ready to go out, neither the hairband nor the drawing had arrived yet.
    'I won't bother with it now,' she answered Mrs Pugh's enquiry, 'I want to catch the post van into Dale End. Is there anything you need while I'm there?'
    'There's a list of books your uncle wants from the library, and there's probably some due to go back.'
    'I've got both,' Marion answered her, 'that's why I particularly want to go in today or they'll be overdue. And I need some new sketching pencils for myself.' She wanted only the one, and she would not have needed that, she thought with asperity, if it had not been for Reeve and his wretched helicopter. It did not strike her as illogical that she blamed only Reeve, and not Willy as well.
    'I thought I saw Mr Harland,' the housekeeper began, and Marion interrupted her hastily. She did not want to hear about Reeve Harland, his movements held no interest for her, she told herself, except that she preferred them to be in the opposite direction to her own.
    'I'll have to go, or I'll miss the post van. I saw him go down towards Wade's farm about twenty minutes ago.' There was no gainsaying her excuse,, if she missed the van her opportunity to go to Dale End would be irretrievably lost until the following morning. She ran down the Steps and paused on the bottom one. A sleek Rover was pulled up at the side of the street, and Willy and Reeve leaned against the bonnet, deep in discussion. They saw her and straightened to their feet just as she caught sight of the post van.
    'Oh, wave him to stop for me!' The driver was evidently in a hurry, and her hesitation on the hotel step lost her the necessary precious seconds to attract his attention in time to pick her up. She let out a puff of relief as Willy obligingly waved, and the van driver slowed to a halt and leaned out to speak to him—and then stared with incredulous fury as Reeve deliberately sauntered to the van shaking his head, and actually motioned the driver to carry on. Which he did, without ado. Marion ran towards him, waving frantically, but the van driver could not have seen her, for he went serenely on his way, leaving her with an armful of heavy books, stranded by the side of the road.
    'What did you send him off for?' she cried furiously, turning on Reeve. 'You knew I wanted him.'
    'Because we can give you a much more comfortable ride into Dale End in the car.' He did not look in the least abashed.
    'How do you know I want to go into Dale End? I might want to....'
    'Because that's where the post van goes to,' he interrupted her confidently. 'There isn't anywhere else he could drop you.'
    What he said was perfectly true. Just as it was true that the Rover would be infinitely more comfortable to ride in than the van. The post vehicle was like most basic amenities, indispensable, but still basic.
    'For a stranger to the district you seem to know a lot about our public transport facilities,' she snapped ungraciously.
    'I made it my