Summer

On a warm June afternoon, Charity Royall stood on the doorstep of the only good house in North Dormer.North Dormer was a small, forgotten village, with no railway, no shops, and only one dusty street.Charity had lived there since she was a child, and lately the quiet village felt smaller every day.

Three afternoons a week she unlocked the door of the village library and sat alone among its few, dusty books.Almost no one in North Dormer ever came to borrow one.She kept the library only because Mr. Royall, her guardian, had once been asked to find someone for the job, and no one else wanted it.

That afternoon, as she sat with a book open on her knee, the door opened and a stranger walked in.He was young, well-dressed, and clearly from the city — nothing like the farmers she usually saw.“I’m looking for anything you have on the old houses in this part of the county,” he said, smiling.

Charity felt her face grow warm, and she was suddenly, painfully aware of her plain dress and rough hands.She had never been asked a question like this before, and she had no idea where such books might be kept.“I — I’m not sure,” she admitted. “No one has ever asked me that.”

He laughed kindly, not unkindly, and explained that he was an architect, visiting his cousin Miss Hatchard for the summer.He wanted to study the old, forgotten houses scattered around the hills near North Dormer.Charity searched the shelves slowly, embarrassed, while he waited without any sign of impatience.

At last she found one thin, dusty volume, and he thanked her as though she had done him a great favor.Long after he had gone, Charity sat still, thinking that North Dormer suddenly felt like a different, more interesting place.