“Mine too,” Pat said. “Only I was the youngest of five.” They’d reached the end of the lawn. She put the case down and dug out one of the old tin tea-canisters she’d hunted up, then balanced it on a fence post. “Frank and Donald were as noisy and boisterous as poorly trained dogs. They called me names and broke my toys and did all the horrible things brothers do—except Bill, he was always decent—and we were really only just starting to get along in a civilised way when they went to South Africa. I can’t honestly say I missed them when they were gone. It was a lot more peaceful and a lot less work, and I was perfectly content until I learned they wouldn’t be coming back.”

She stopped there because she couldn’t think of anything else to say. Miss Carruth’s eyes were impossibly huge, fixed on her face. “I’m so sorry. That’s wholly inadequate but I don’t know if there’s anything else one can say.”

“Not really. Certainly not, ‘At least you still have two left.’”

“Please don’t tell me people say that to you.”

“Of course they do,” Pat said. “As if mathematics apply to families. And particularly when one of the remaining brothers is Jonty.”

Miss Carruth gave a squeak of laughter. “Oh dear.”

“He’s not bad really, so long as one doesn’t live with him,” Pat said. “Or at least, I hope he won’t be when I don’t. Shall we begin? Rifle or revolver?”

“Revolver?” Miss Carruth echoed. “Does one shoot with a revolver?”

“They’re not much use for anything else,” Pat pointed out, and felt a tingle of pleasure at the smile that lit Miss Carruth’s eyes.

“What a pity. I thought I could use one to dress a hat. But surely grouse and pheasants and so on involve rifles?”

“They do, but you said you’d prefer not to shoot game. There’s always target shooting, for which you’d use a small bore rifle. But if you just wanted the experience of handling a gun, you might find a revolver easier to use, and I do think it’s a valuable skill to acquire. You never know when you might need it.”

Miss Carruth looked somewhat startled. “Why would I ever need to use a revolver?”

“Well, I have. Our house is isolated, a mile from the village, and we’ve had intruders, including a group of men who broke in during the day when only Father and I were at home. He was very elderly then, and I was fifteen. I heard them in the hall and came down to confront them. It was really quite frightening.”

“Good heavens, I expect it was. What happened?”