Moreover, they were happy and contented and healthy. For many of them
_Jane Eyre_ was still a forbidden book and a railway train a
remarkable adventure.
Polchester was the world and the world was Polchester. They were at least
a century nearer to Jane Austen's day than they were to George the
Fifth's.
Joan saw, with relief, so soon as she entered the room, that the St. Leath
women were absent. They overawed her and were so much older than the
others there that they brought constraint with them and embarrassment.
Any stranger, coming suddenly into the room, must have felt its light and
gaiety and happiness. The high wide dining-room windows were open and
looked, over sloping lawns, down to the Pol and up again to the woods
beyond. The trees were faintly purple in the spring sun, daffodils were
nodding on the lawn and little gossamer clouds of pale orange floated like
feathers across the sky. The large dining-room table was cleared for
action, and Gladys Sampson, very serious and important, stood at the far
end of the room under a very bad oil-painting of her father, directing
operations.
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