Does melancholy attract misfortune? Or is it true that past, present and future are one, only divided by our time sense? Mrs. Merton was fated to become in her old age the tragic figure she had looked when young. Her husband was already dead when her only son and two grandsons were killed in the 1914-18 War and she was left practically alone in the world.

By that time she had gone to live in another village, and Laura’s mother, herself bereaved by the War, walked over to see her and sympathize. She found her a sad but resigned old woman. There was no longer any talk about supping sorrow, no mourning her own woes, but a quiet acceptance of the world as it then was and a resolute attempt at cheerfulness.

It was spring and her room had flowers in pots and vases. The air was rather faint with the scent of them, her visitor noticed; then, looking more closely, she found they were not garden flowers. Every pot and jug and vase was filled with hawthorn blossom.

She was rather shocked at this, for, although less superstitious than many countrywomen, she herself would not have brought may blossom indoors. It might be unlucky, or it might not, but there was no sense in running unnecessary risks.

“Aren’t you afraid all this may’ll bring you bad luck?” she asked Mrs. Merton as they sipped their tea.

Mrs. Merton smiled, and a smile from her was almost as unusual as to see may indoors. “How can it?” she said. “I’ve got nobody else to lose. I’ve always been fond of those flowers. So I thought I’d bring some of them in and enjoy them. My thread’s spun as far as luck’s concerned.”

Politics were seldom mentioned by the women. If they did come up it was usually by way of comment on some husband’s excessive zeal. “Why can’t he leave such things alone? ‘Tis no business of his’n,” some wife would say. “What does it matter to him who governs? Whoever ‘tis they won’t give us nothing, and they can’t take nothing away from us, for you can’t get blood from a stone.”

Some would discriminate and say it was a pity the men had taken up with these Liberal notions. “If they’ve got to vote, why not vote Tory and keep in with the gentry? You never hear of Liberals giving the poor a bit of coal or a blanket at Christmas.” As, indeed, you did not, for there was no Liberal in the parish but bought his own coals by the hundredweight and might think himself lucky if his wife had a blanket for each bed.