Oh, how familiar that ceiling was! There in the middle were the plugged-up holes in the plaster showing where the trapeze had hung, in the days when the room was a nursery. And there in one corner was a network of cracks like a map. Long ago Joanna had connected this network with her mother’s weekly petition at prayers for “India, China and the Distant Islands of the Sea.” And looking at it now, she wished vehemently that she had been born in one of these remote lands. She was certain that no one in China or the Distant Isles could be so bereft of life as she. Why, in India girls married at twelve. And we were asked to be sorry for them!

As she stretched out her arms in a gesture of weariness, the back of her hand came against the forgotten letter. There it was, still unopened!

She remained supine: she would barely admit the diversion; but she lost not a moment in stripping off the wrapper. And in no time then she was sitting upright to smooth out the flimsy foreign sheets against her knee. They were so crossed and re-crossed as to be legible only with difficulty; but she had glanced at the end, and with a queer little shock of excitement had discovered who the writer was.

It was a letter from Aunt Perdy in Italy.

After some re-shuffling Joanna found the beginning.

“My dear child and niece,” she read –

“You will no doubt be surprised to hear from me, and possibly your mother will be displeased at my writing. But the latter cannot be helped; and as for the former, life is, and ever will be, full of surprises for you as for me. How, you ask, do I know this? Ebbene, as we say here; I will tell you. This morning (it is now evening, and from my lonely cot as I write I can see the sun dropping behind my beloved Carraras like a ball of fire) I was clearing an old trunk when I came upon a family birthday-book. To refresh my memory I began looking through it (the quotations for each day are from our dear Bobbie Burns), and what do you think I found? Why, that the only two births in March for our family are yours and my own. Do you realize what that means, Joanna? No you do not. But your Aunt Perdy will tell you; for she has devoted years of her life to studying the wondrous signs of the Zodiac. And March – the month of Aries – The Ram, i.e. The Lamb – is the most mystical month of the twelve. It is in March that the earth is born afresh every year. Our Saviour was born in March, not in December as is vulgarly supposed (though I will not go into that now), and the Chosen of God – those who are sent into the world to teach and to suffer – Ah! above all, my Joanna, to suffer – see the light under the celestial dominion of The Lamb which was from the foundation of the world. To suffer, but also to rejoice, as those born in any of the other months know not joy.”