Carriglas, May 2nd, 1908. When I came down to breakfast John James and Lionel had already begun their journey back to school in England. The places were re-arranged around the dining-room table, Colonel Rolleston and his mother at either end, Villana and I side by side. In the nursery-schoolroom the first information I imparted to Villana was that the Romans, with their straight roads and sophisticated ways, never came to Ireland: she didn’t listen. The hen gazed at us from its sick-bed and at eleven o’clock Linchy knocked on the door before entering with a tray of tea and pink wafer biscuits. Our afternoon lessons were conducted beneath the strawberry trees because Colonel Rolleston believes in fresh air.

Carriglas, June 16th, 1908. I feel less nervous now, even of Villana.

Touched in places with damp or mildew, the unadorned handwriting throws out affectionate images from the pages of the account books. The straight, tall figure of Colonel Rolleston returns from the pier with the Irish Times, which every morning the ferryman places in a niche of the pier wall. Sun streams through the open hall-door, rousing the Colonel’s spaniel to seek the shade of the strawberry trees. Haverty stands by the dog-cart at the pier, awaiting Mrs Rolleston’s return from her mainland shopping. Autumn mist lingers on the morning cobwebs in the garden. The first frost whitens the delphinium lawn.

Every year, on Villana’s birthday, the children’s mother is mourned, the only time Colonel Rolleston ever closes his study door. Every year there is the summer party, when croquet and tennis are played, and there is a paper-chase for the children. Four gardeners at Carriglas tend the flowerbeds and the shrubberies, and keep the avenue weeded, and the kitchen supplied. Villana’s hen is buried. Letters arrive from Dunadry Rectory. There are leisurely walks to Elador’s Bay and to the standing stones, and the abbey ruins. In summer Sarah’s brother arrives.

The orderly household, belonging with other households of its kind, is interrupted by the regular departure of Colonel Rolleston to his regiment. He descends to the kitchen to say goodbye to Linchy and Mrs Gerrity and the maids, and then goes in search of the gardeners. His family, and Sarah too, stand on the steps to see him off. It is always a surprise when he returns, and for days afterwards in the dining-room he tells of his adventures and experiences, passing on to Linchy what news there is in Dublin, where usually he has spent a night. There is never talk of his re-marrying.