A Slender Thread — Iris Bromige

It is an invitation for Christmas which starts it all for Kate. In the past she had spent so many happy holidays with the Vermonts that she was almost a member of the family, and they had provided a haven in her own unhappy childhood. Kate had even become engaged to Mark Vermont for a while, but when she broke it off she had felt too embarrassed to maintain contact with the rest of the family.

Now, two years later, she is assured that a warm welcome awaits her, and, anyway, Mark will be bringing someone else to the family party. His attention will be engaged elsewhere. So, too, at first is Kate's, for a dashing Vermont cousin, Phillippe, is also going to be around and prepared now to take notice of the former blushing teenager whose calf love he had so easily ignored in the school holidays of yesteryear.

For Kate, this reunion with the hero of her immature dreams is a heady experience, and helping to start a craft shop in a small Sussex market town completes the transformation of her life into something new, exciting and fulfilling, until an unpleasant revelation shatters her illusions. Now only a slender thread remains by which she can be drawn back to happiness.