When the little car—driven by Aunt Effie, with Sabrina in the rumble seat so that Bella could make her self comfortable in front between Father’s feet—turned into the prim, dreaming streets of the Bath suburbs, Sabrina was still excited, still gazing eagerly to right and left, though her eyes had begun to water with the cold and her cheeks were feverish with windburn. She did not mind sitting outside under a rug when the hood was up, because you could see more, even while the wind tangled your upper eyelashes with your lower ones and whipped your hair into wisps and made your ears ache. You hadn’t got to listen to people out there, and could think your own thoughts. In her lap under the rug was a book about the Bath Road and coaching days and highwaymen and Beau Nash. She knew it almost by heart, so it didn’t matter that she hadn’t been able to open it comfortably for reference along the way. The dark tower of the Abbey rose serene and old against the pale March sky—and not having been inside she didn’t know how bleak and yet cluttered was its interior, with all those white monuments and tablets.

It was too early for tea, but they stopped at a garage for petrol and when they drove on again she glimpsed the row of Roman Emperors round the top of the Baths, and the place where Bath Oliver biscuits are made—and was amused for several miles because of a sign outside the latter which offered broken bits at a reduced rate per pound.

By that time the Hills began—not bleak and stony as they would have to be round Dolebury, but starred with tree clusters; dipping, rolling, heaving, delicious land, all turning a shy, incredible green. As the road dropped down exquisitely into Wells, the feeling in the pit of Sabrina’s stomach had nothing to do with the tired springs of the little car, or with cold, or tea time. She felt all the time now as though one of Selfridge’s lifts had plunged downward beneath her, but it was a sensation of sheer excitement and joy.

This was a day she had been coming towards all her life. It would bring the fulfillment of some tremendous, half-dreamed desire. Ugliness and vague fears and unaccountable uncertainty had been left behind, and just ahead, at the end of this day’s journey, some still inconceivable enchantment was waiting in the house called Nuns Farthing. I’m coming home, I’m coming home, she told herself over and over again, and had to let it go at that.