ng these
twelve months. And even from the monetary point of view I am better
off than I was when I came, because if I have lost in the way of income
I have gained by a saving in expenditure. You simply cannot spend
money in Windyridge, and, what is more, the things best worth having
cannot be bought with money.

These "more excellent" things appear upon another page in my balance
sheet--a page which would make the professional auditor gasp for breath.

My experiences have made me a richer woman, though not a more important
personage to my bankers. I am healthier and happier than I was a year
ago. I have a living interest in an entire community, and an entire
community has a living interest in me. And I have a few real friends
in various stations of life, each of whom would do a great deal for me,
and each of whom has taught me several valuable lessons without fee or
reward. The moors and the glens, too, have had me to school and opened
to me their secret stores of knowledge, and who shall compute the worth
of that education? As a result, I have a saner outlook and a truer
judgment, and that counts for much in my case. Undoubtedly the balance
is on the right side, and I have no regrets as I turn and look back
along the track of the year.

The anniversary day itself was marked by an incident of uncommon
interest. The weather was atrocious, and in marked contrast to that of
the previous year on the corresponding date. Had such conditions
prevailed when I first saw Windyridge the village would not have known
me as one of its householders.

It rained as though the floodgates of heaven had been opened and got
rusted fast. For three days there had been one endless downpour, but
on the fateful Wednesday it degenerated into a miserable, depressing
drizzle which gave me the blues. The distance disappeared behind an
impenetrable wall of mist, and the horizon was the hedge of the field
fifty yards away. The drip, drip, drip from a leak in the glazing of
my studio so got on my nerves that in the afternoon I put on my strong
boots and a waterproof and set out for a walk.

But though the rain could not conquer me the sticky mud did. After
covering a mile in half an hour I was so tired with the exertion that I
turned back, and was relieved when the distance has been almost covered
and only a few hundred yards separated me from the cottage.

I had had the road to myself so far, but as I came down the hill which
skir