“Amanda, you are required in the library.”

The words clawed at her stomach and her jaw tightened. She knew everyone was watching her, but she dare not remove her gaze from a fixed point next to the clock on the mantelpiece lest their eyes meet.

“Amanda, did you hear me?” Sir John’s voice was insistent now and she shuffled where she stood, her hands smoothing down the folds of her silver grey silk dress.

Her guardian was usually the most patient of men, too patient some would say, but not so today. Amanda swallowed as she remembered her imaginings when Claire and Amelia were in the same position; it had all seemed so dangerous and exciting. However, now that it had come to her turn, she suddenly understood why Chloe might have fled Sir John’s care all those months ago.

“Amanda Louise, if you do not come at once, you will go to bed without supper and I will ask Thomas to call again next month when you are better minded to receive him.” Sir John’s voice carried a tone that now carried finality akin to doom.

Amanda sighed and smoothed at her dress again, then turned to face her guardian.

He was tall and cut a dash for a man fast approaching 50. Beneath his stern countenance was the same kindly twinkle that he had when the four of them had been received at his house. He was not a fusty creature, but one of his age, the epitome of a 19^th century man.

“You must look upon me as your father,” then he had said in joyous and expansive tones, “For you are now my daughters. I gave your parents my word.”

Amanda was too young to remember either, they having been in India for eight years even before their deaths five years before. Sir John was the only father she had ever known.

“Sir must we… I mean if Thomas and I are to be married, surely we can…” Amanda knew her remonstration was futile, but her comfort, modesty and very dignity were about to be challenged.

“Amanda, you know the rules and traditions of this house,” Sir John said firmly, “If you do not come at once, I will spank you like a child and send you to bed without supper and you will have gained nothing but unnecessary delay, unless of course you do not wish to marry Thomas.”

The last suggestion was the final spur she needed.

“No Papa, I mean yes. I will come directly,” Amanda said in a childish voice, using the girls term of endearment for Sir John.

“You, Amanda Louise, will come at once,” Sir John snapped at her.

Amanda stole a glance at the others in the room who were all regarding her benignly enough.

“Yes Sir,” she whispered, before starting her journey across the room with head bowed and very small steps.

Charles Grey followed the small auburn-haired pretty with his eyes and wondered at the exactness she was in miniature to his own dear wife Amelia, who sat nearby thinking on past memories perhaps.

“We all had to go through it,” Claire said, addressing the room without looking anyone in the eye.

“Yes and what a fuss some of us made,” Amelia said with a twitch of her mouth without looking up.

Claire blushed to her ears and dropped her chin to her chest.

Her husband, Algernon, chuckled as he remembered the night in question.

“I know someone who might make a fuss of her own later this night,” Charles observed dryly.

It was Amelia’s turn to blush.

*

Thomas was awaiting them in the library with a large glass of brandy in his hand. Despite the circumstance, Amanda thought he had never looked so handsome. However, today he looked at least as nervous as she did.

“Look sir, perhaps I should… well just leave you to it,” he ventured, fumbling with his glass.

“Nonsense man, you’re over 21, time you learnt how to handle a your future wide,” Sir John dismissed his words.

Amanda sucked in her cheeks, thrilled that Thomas would be so gallant. For a moment she felt an urge to beg Sir John to heed him, but then she thought of Charles and Ernest in the other room and what they would think of Thomas if he should quail at the task in hand. No, Sir John was correct, they all had a duty. Then she allowed herself to look upon the curve-seated stool on the middle of the room and what lay upon it.

“Come along girl, you know what is to be done, after all it is not the first time you have felt the nilgiri,” Sir John chided as he nodded at the stool.

It was true, although she was more usually spanked by Sir John or Helen, the governess, when she was in error. But this would be the first time in front of Thomas or anyone not of the family. Amanda could not look her future husband in the eye as he took another swig of brandy to steady himself. Then taking a deep breath and gathering all her resolve he hands stole the buttons on her dress and she began to loosen it so that it might be turned up behind.

Meanwhile Sir John poured himself a cognac and topped up Thomas’s glass before taking up the cane and hefting it in his hand.

“Shall I call the maid?” He said, seeing Amanda struggle with her things.

Amanda shook her head and applied herself all the more lest she be overruled.

Sir John nodded and he and Thomas turned their back as she continued to fumble with her dress.

It took several moments before a frustrated Amanda squeaked, “Please Sir I… my dress, I can’t…”

Sir John smiled sympathetically and rang the bell, which was answered almost at once by Alice the senior house maid.

“Alice, please ask Miss Conway to attend us,” Sir John directed her.

Alice made a show of a curtsey and slipped away.

An awkward silence then fell upon the room, throughout which Amanda dared not look at either man.

“I say Sir, rather good hunting of late,” Thomas threw out randomly as he took another sip of brandy.

“Yes, not bad,” Sir John replied as he studied the tip of the cane.

Finally Helen Conway entered the room with an easy smile that took in both men. “You sent for me Sir?” She said.

“Ah Helen, yes, Miss Amanda here needs some assistance with her attire before we can… eh… do the necessary,” Sir John cleared his throat.

“Of course,” Helen beamed moving directly to the girl and taking her shoulders turned her gently about.

It took several long minutes to pin Amanda’s skirts and petticoats to the back of her dress until the white linen of her draws were revealed.

“Shall I…? I mean rather, down or off?” Helen ventured.

“Safer off, don’t you think,” Sir John said with an embarrassed cough, “I mean, we don’t want the girl to trip up and so forth.”

“Quite Sir,” Helen agreed.

Amanda wanted to protest and her heart raced until she thought it would burst as the governess turned her attention to her under linen. She would had cheerfully died on the spot rather than be revealed to the chill of the room, but alas for her, she was a healthy young woman and the cool air that suddenly touched her legs no more than raised a few goose bumps.

Once the back portion of her person was nude below the waist, Helen led her to the stool and helped her lower herself as daintily as the situation would allow until her tightly split and trim bare bottom was offered almost obscenely uppermost for a thorough chastisement with the cane.

“Oh heavens, oh please Sir, don’t let him,” Amanda spluttered.

“Ah, we can make a start,” Sir John observed as he lined himself up. “Do turn sir and regard the… eh target.”

Thomas breathed in heavily through his nose and turned to feast upon his fiancé’s delights with his eyes.

“I shall lay on… a dozen say and then you shall follow with… well let’s see how we get on,” Sir John suggested and then to his ward he said, “Amanda attend.”

Amanda squirmed in her place across the stool, her eyes straining to look behind her, but scarce daring to turn her head lest she meet either of the men’s eyes.

“This is how you must submit when you are deserving; do you understand?” Sir John said sternly.

“Yes Sir,” Amanda squeaked.

“Thomas, you see how you shall master her?”

“Sir,” Thomas acknowledged, barely able to speak.

Assured he had both young people’s full attention, Sir John tapped the cane across Amanda’s exposed bottom to line up for a stroke. The cold attention drew a small gasp from the girl.

The first stroke in earnest bit in hard and Amanda answered it with a throaty, “Gah.”

“Oh my, that ridge, it rises fast Sir,” Thomas observed.

“Quite so,” Sir John agreed, “Let it develop in full before adding to it and then…”

He struck again. “Lay on just below it so that the two tramlines ate left in parallel.”

Amanda screamed and then followed it with an angry groan behind tightly drawn lips as she struggled with the growing lines of pain.

The cry was heard in the drawing room, which provoked an exchange of smirks between Claire and Amelia.

“It sounds as if the dog is out of the traps,” Algernon observed.

Charles glanced at him sideways, having no idea what metaphor the man was drawing on.

“I’ll say,” Claire giggled. “It seems our little sister won’t be sitting for dinner this evening.”

“One never does on these occasions,” Amelia agreed.

Claire blushed.

*

Outside it was raining and the wind had wound itself up into a gale that threatened to denude half the forest. So it was with some relief that Chloe spied the lights of the house and put her head down for one final spurt forward.

There had not been carriage available from the railway station and the master’s boy had refused to bring word to the hall on such a night, so Chloe had been forced to walk the three miles with her one bag.

With every step she had dreaded her return, fearing that her arrival would not be welcome given the scandalous retreat she had made from the family’s society some months before.

Her life had been something of an adventure in recent weeks, but now she had found that even Duke’s sons got bored with a pretty girl, especially as there was always one more blue eye to flutter at him.

A week before they had been at Bath to take the waters and thoughts of marriage had been on her mind. Fool, she thought, her refusal to spread her legs her one grain of solace.

“Well, I’ll be spreading them for pennies ere the week is out if they won’t take me back,” she sighed.

The house loomed near now and she wondered against hope that she would arrive in time for dinner.

*

Amanda wept gently as her welt-stained bottom squirmed on the uppermost part of the curved seated stool. She had a dozen crisp plum-coloured lines standing proud of her porcelain-like skin and each one still sawed into her hind-end with a ferocity that showed no signs of abating. Each burning stripe had been placed after long slow intervals and as a consequence, she had spent a good four or five minutes crushing herself into the far side of the stool and all but clawing at the carpet beyond it.

“I would have hoped she was more stoical,” Sir John remarked as he handed Thomas the cane.

“Oh I don’t know Sir, I think she is a brave girl,” Thomas said proudly. Then to Amanda he said, “I think duty has been served and Sir John’s point has been made, but if you can take but six more from me, then no one can say you haven’t done your duty to tradition.”

“It is for my own good, I know it,” Amanda sniffed, “And if I did not take a dozen from you then I would be less than worthy as your future wife.”

“Capital,” Sir John said enthusiastically, “Well said my girl.”

“I cannot promise to be as neat as you Sir, but I’ll do my best,” Thomas said as he took the cane.

“If she countenances more of her own accord then may I suggest you lay them well on and aim for the marks Sir,” Helen suggested.

“I think I know how to proceed,” Thomas said in annoyance.

However, try as he might, his first stroke fell low and took Amanda across the tops of her thighs. She screamed, but did no more than rock from side to side after that.

Thomas’s next stroke cut higher, but diagonally across the crowns forming a gate effect.

Amanda was equally vocal at this and it took several minutes for her to calm her sobbing so that he could proceed.

“Shall I draw to a close?” He asked concerned, “I seem to be making a muck of it.”

Amanda shook her head and braced herself. She doubted that her guardian would allow an early bath in any case.

The third stroke landed squarely between two of the upper ridges and Amanda held at a strangled grunt. His next was better still and landed on virgin territory.

“By God the boy has got it,” Sir John said excitedly.

All in all it was a fair effort and only the last couple landed on already welted flesh on the underside of Amanda’s bottom. For these, she shrieked at each impact, but nonetheless bore-up and only when Sir John announced the job done did she break to open sobbing.

Thomas stood back to surreptitiously adjust the cockstand under his trousers, eyeing Helen lest she notice. But the governess was absorbed with helping Amanda to her feet and a closer look at her en-coloured bottom, while Sir John seemed oblivious to any sexual dimension at all as he congratulated the newest member of his family and poured out a fresh round of brandy.

Just then there was a loud knock at the main door and for a moment all eyes turned that way.

“Who the devil is that?” Sir John said in proprietorial tones.

*

Much to Chloe’s surprise, there was good cheer all round as she was ushered into the drawing room.

“Where the devil have you been?” Sir John exclaimed, it being all he could do not to embrace his prodigal ward.

“I have been…” a shamefaced Chloe began.

“Never mind about that, let’s get the girl to her room and into a warm bed,” Helen said solicitously, pushing herself forward. “Later she can have something on a tray.”

Chloe stole a glance at the dishevelled Amanda emerging from the library. Even from the front she could see her sister’s skirts were turned up and the tear-brimmed eyes told the rest of the tale.

Following her younger sister’s gaze Amelia said, “You can meet Thomas and hear all about that later. But for now, Helen is right, it’s bed for you young lady.”

Chloe nodded and allowed herself to be led to the foot of the stairs, But Amelia hadn’t quite done with her.

“As you can see things are much the same here,” the eldest whispered in her ear, “Later you and I will have words. I can promise you there is plenty of cane left for you and if Sir John does not thrash you at my urging, you’ll get quite a bill from me.”

Chloe offered Amelia a pair of sad eyes, desperate to plead her case, but in truth she could not deny that she deserved her sister’s words and what would most likely follow.

Helen and Amelia helped the bedraggled Chloe up the stairs leaving the others to sojourn to the dining room. Now that Chloe had returned, everyone was in high spirits, intent now on a double celebration. Although for Amanda it was the part she had been dreading. Both tradition and practicalities demanded that she stand at the mantle for her supper, while the rest of the family sat at table toasting her and her future husband’s coming nuptials.

As if that wasn’t embarrassing enough, Amanda, like her sisters before her, was required to stand facing the mantle with her skirts still pinned into the small of her back so that her well-welted behind was displayed to the assembled company and the servants as they came back and forth with each course.

“Please may I…” Amanda began, a fresh tear rolling down one cheek.

“Certainly not,” Claire cut in, “We were not allowed to.”

“Besides, would you deprive our gentleman of the sight of your well-humbled charms,” Amelia said as she entered the room.

“Quite so,” Algernon piped up.

“How is Chloe?” Sir John asked.

All eyes then turned to Amelia, even Amanda’s.

“She is fine, she is with Helen,” Amelia said easily, as if to dismiss all concerns. “It was all I could do to prevent Helen spanking the errant girl there and then.”

“Well she certainly deserves it, giving us all a scare,” Claire said pointedly.

“Well that is up to you Papa, but I cannot say I do not agree,” Amelia said looking at Sir John and using her pet name for him, “And quite frankly, I think she deserves more than just a bottom warming with a hairbrush before she is fully forgiven.”

Sir John nodded, but kept his own council on the matter.

“In any case, I intend to take that young lady aside for a lengthy dose of the hairbrush whatever action you may take,” Amelia said.

“So you hold that errant females deserve no respite then?” Charles fixed his wife with a firm stern look.

“None whatsoever,” Amelia said, staring back equally hard.

“Please can I go to my room,” a woeful Amanda said, “I could take my supper in my room like Chloe?”

“No,” They all chorused at once, before the assembled company descended into to general laughter.

*

Amelia had been waiting for some time, but that was to be expected. Charles was such a tartar when it came to punishments and on this occasion she could not say she did not deserve it. However, the timing could have been better. Not only was the prospect of her correction sufficient to have taken the edge off her enjoyment of Amanda’s discomfort, but she would like to have been on hand to oversee Chloe’s return. Still there were others to do that and duty, as always, had to come first.

Directly after dinner she had reported to her room to change into her night things. But that had been before Helen and Alice had come to prepare her in accordance with Charles’s strict instructions.

On seeing the enema apparatus she could scarcely claim to be surprised, but it was nevertheless a shock. Under Helen’s direction she had been stripped quite naked and secured to the bedposts with lengths of cotton cloth at her wrists and ankles.

Her bare bottom had been elevated with first two and then after some consideration on Helen’s part, a third pillow.

“That should serve,” Helen said, “It is how I used to prepare her when she was still under my charge.”

Amelia blushed at this revelation before Alice, but the maid showed no amusement.

“Cleanse her thoroughly, at least twice, no thrice,” Helen ordered, “More if you think it necessary. Then oil her posteriors thoroughly and take your time in all regards, she is to be thoroughly shamed.”

“Yes Ma’am,” Alice said curtsying.

“I would stay and supervise, but I must attend to Chloe,” Helen said as she made to leave.

At the door she paused as she considered Amelia’s displayed humility on the bed. Then she quite deliberately opened the door to its fullest extent so that passers-by might see in and then she promptly left.

“Please Alice,” Amelia said, barely containing her shame, “Close the door.”

“It is not the closing of the door that concerns us now Miss, but the opening of something else,” Alice replied as she placed the nozzle of the clyster at Amelia’s tightest orifice and gently applied pressure.

The next hour or so had been a humiliating ordeal at her maid’s direction and when she had complained again about the door and the utter shameful treatment, Alice had merely responded by calling another maid to aid her in adding a fourth enema to the regime.

Now after another hour, Amelia lay prone to every passing prying eye and praying that Charles would soon come to her.

*

The wait was not a short one and in truth Amelia, exhausted at every little sound in the hall had dozed a little. The first she knew that Charles had come was when he spoke to her.

“Who left this door open?” Charles said in accusation when he finally arrived.

“Those whom in whose charge you left me,” Amelia said, even now reluctant to make trouble for Helen or Alice, after all it was her rightful punishment.

“Perhaps it is just,” Charles said in a mellower tone. But nonetheless he closed the door before removing his coat.

“Charles please can I…” Amelia began.

“You have words to justify your behaviour?”

“No I…”

“You think to meet with the curate again for, what was it, a book reading?”

“No but…”

“He is a man, a young man and people are apt to talk are they not?”

“Yes Sir,” Amelia conceded.

“So I am just?”

“Yes Charles.”

“Quite so,” Charles said satisfied. “I intend strapping you, just to get your attention mind. I see you have been well-oiled for the task. Then I shall cane you.”

“Yes Sir,” Amelia whispered.

*

Amelia lay panting, the blessed release of a thousand tears soaking into the bed’s remaining pillow after her hips had been elevated. In truth, the goose down-stuffed cotton had already been moistened from her attempts to stifle her cries at the first blazing assault of Charles’s belt.

He had stopped twice to reply oil to her throbbing red-astonished flesh before a quite thorough reapplication of the razor strop that usually hung in their bathroom.

“I do not cry off Sir,” she sobbed when it seemed he would never stop, “But be assured I am truly sorry.”

He nodded and thankfully tossed the strop aside.

“You know I must cane you don’t you, for I have given my word on it,” he whispered as he stooped to console her.

“Yes Sir,” she managed to say through continuing tears, but the prospect of the cane with her bottom that adjacent exposed so terrified her.

“Do you remember that time I had Helen…” he began.

Amelia’s eyes went wide and she looked back at him, aghast, begging with her eyes. She remembered all too well. He had sat in the chair smoking his pipe watching while Helen had humiliatingly smoothed an oily noxious substance lovingly on each of her cane stripes and then welt by welt, polished the ridges on her bottom with a rough flannel.

“Please Charles, please not that,” she begged him now, a mere shadow of the pleading she had indulged in on that day.

“I will spare you today, but mark me well. If you ever dally with another man again, you and your bottom will sing their woe and you won’t sit down for a month.”

“Yes Sir,” she sighed in grateful relief.

*

Chloe had been summoned to the library and she knew what that meant. If she had been in any doubt about Sir John’s regime having changed, then Amanda’s fate the previous evening and Amelia’s gasping yelps under Charles’s cane that had lasted long into the night had put that from her mind.

No, it was not home and Sir John that had changed, but rather Chloe herself. Gone was the selfish flighty little thing who had turned her back on her family out of some fashionable notion of independence. Now she was a woman of the world who had learned her lesson. If Sir John was to punish her then it was no more than she deserved.

Chloe looked at herself hard in the mirror, her big round green eyes staring back at her under wayward locks of red hair. Her face was set with resolve, resignation even. She was to be thrashed, no doubt about it and she would deserve every lick of it. In fact, she thought with bitter amusement, if I ever have a daughter who is so wayward as me, I would hope to score her behind so that she has to stand for breakfast, luncheon and tea every day for weeks.

A small nod of ‘so there’ acknowledged her from the mirror and she matched it with a small bitter smile.

“Come Daniel,” she sighed aloud, resolution clinging to every syllable, “Off to the lions den.”

Chloe took a grim satisfaction from her descent of the main staircase to the library. It had all the theatrics of a condemned man and for a brief moment she was the girl of old who always wanted to be the centre of attention. Then she remembered the attention that almost certainly awaited her bottom and she quailed a little. Pausing where she stood as her hands wandered to the seat of her skirts.

Alice, who had respectfully stood aside and was waiting in the corner of the landing halfway down the stairs for Chloe to pass, studiously didn’t look at the gesture; a sure sign that she saw it all, and so Chloe blushed.

Just then Amelia crossed the hall bellow on her way to the dining room. She too paused and looked up at Chloe, her face softening.

“Will you join me for breakfast,” she said.

“I am expected in the library,” Chloe replied, her eyes shyly averted.

“After breakfast to be sure,” Amelia replied, “But Papa is not there yet. Come.”

Perhaps eager to put off her confrontations with Sir John, Chloe seized on the instruction from her elder sister and obeyed. As they walked together the last few steps Chloe noticed a stiffness to Amelia’s gait.

“No doubt you heard,” Amelia remarked.

Chloe nodded, still shy.

“Very much deserved, I assure you,” Amelia confirmed. “I shall not sit this day or for some considerable time, I’ll warrant.”

She said this as they entered the room and both women saw that another place had been set at the mantle next to where Amanda stood eating. Mercifully for the youngest sister her skirts were no longer turned up, but that did not lessen her shame judging from the crimson shade that masked her face.

“I see my discomfort has been anticipated,” Amelia said dryly.

“So it would seem,” Chloe said, slightly amused, and then she added ruefully, “No doubt there will be a place for me there come luncheon.”

“You can be assured of that my girl,” Amelia said sharply, remembering her previous days resolve on the matter. Then more lightly, “I’m famished. Race you to the buffet.”

Chloe giggled. There was no possibility that Amelia could run anywhere taking only pigeon steps.

*

Chloe hadn’t eaten much at breakfast; the kippers had been as cardboard, especially when Sir John had taken his place at the table. The only respite had been the collective amusement at Amelia and Amanda standing side by side at the mantelpiece for their repast.

There was no amusement now however, for after breakfast, Chloe had been given the dressing down of her young life. Sir John had scolded her half to death as she stood under his blistering gaze and soft spoken reproach. By the climax of his censure, Chloe was tearfully spewing her regrets and repented every last failing of her thoughtless flight.

“Your reputation is in tatters, what are we to do with you?” Sir John sighed in a tone that signalled the end of his tirade.

“I don’t know Sir,” she had said, her eyes firmly affixed at her shoes.

“Well I know how to make a start,” he had intoned, growling like a bear.

What had followed had left Chloe in no doubt to Sir John’s wrath. Helen had entered with Alice and both women had stripped her down to her bodice and open draws, taking care that the latter should be pinned back to their widest extent without the least regard for Sir John’s presence.

Then shivering with bare feet against the damp wet grass, she had been led through the French windows and out into the surrounding woods by Helen and Alice.

“Please, I’m naked, where are we going?” She had wailed, more than conscious of her exposed bottom behind and the scantiness of her the rest of her person.

“We are off to cull birch lengths for a rod,” Helen informed.

It was an old style punishment, used mostly for the maids; the shame of it was beyond exquisite, even if no one saw her.

“But someone will see, please Helen,” she pleaded.

“Perhaps, perhaps not,” the governess shrugged, “Is it not the merely the shame manifest of that which you have heaped on this family?”

Chloe had fallen silent after that, recognising the justice of Helen’s words.

The expedition into the woods had taken them close to the road. From there they could see beyond to where men were working the fields. Chloe prayed that none would stray the very few yards in their direction before their small party moved on. However, just as they reached the point closest to the road and within clear view of the men, if they did but turn to look, Helen had them stop to hand Chloe a small pen knife.

“You may cut your withes from here about and if there are none suitable, there are more trees further along the road,” Helen informed her.

“Please, not here, can we not go deeper into the woods,” Chloe pleaded.

“Do as you’re told,” Helen said impatiently.

The next 10 minutes had been an ordeal and any moment threatened exposure of her shame.

That had been how her day had begun, but she was to fare little better, for as soon as they returned, instead of being sent to the old nursery to make a rod, Chloe was directed to stand, still unencumbered with her gown, and face the wall at the foot of the stairs in full view of the household.

With every passing moment a small sound or a passing maid behind her would set Chloe a quiver and renew the shaming blush on her face and each new unseen witness would bring the fear that the punishment would begin.

Lunch came and went with Chloe still at her lone vigil of shame, although the deprivation of sustenance was missed by her. Her appetite having flown.

It was well past 1.30 before Sir John came to convey her back to the library. In his hand he carried the birch rod.

“A you ready?” He asked

Taking a deep breath she nodded and hugged at herself.

“Papa,” she whispered, a girl again, “I’m so sorry.”

“I know, it will be alright,” he said kindly, laying a hand on her shoulder and giving it a squeeze. “Come on, let’s get this over with.”

Chloe followed him into the library to where a stuffed leather chair had been pulled away from the wall. She had expected the curved seat stool that was used for major offences and the betrothal ritual. She had always hated that stool. So much so that Sir John had usually allowed her to bend over the back of the old stuffed leather armchair. It was almost an old friend to her.

“You know the way,” Sir John said gently.

“Yes Papa,” she replied meekly.

She crossed the room and knelt on the seat facing backwards and then after ensuring the position of her knees leaned over the back and reached down to take hold of the underside of the chair. Although this position thrust her bare bottom up and out to point at the ceiling.

The sound of the rods cutting the air came from a long way off and seemed to hang in time before landing as fire on her tightly drawn skin. She yipped and wagged her tail in a parody of a happy dog. It felt familiar and safe. Chloe was home.

Ends