My mother said it was quite elegant, nicer than her own. It was an ivory satin with an attached wide gathered skirt. The neckline was trimmed with a handmade lace ruffle, and the bodice featured a black-laced closing. Underneath, I would wear a corset over an embroidered chemise. Layers of full petticoats would be worn with a crinoline hoop, creating a full bellowed skirt. The Limerick lace veil was edged with a nine-inch border of floral motifs.

The tailor took my measurements and then announced he would have little to adjust. He kept saying, “Remarkable,” after each measurement. “It’s as if the dress was already made just for you, Miss Dixon.”

“Maybe it was,” my mother quipped, and they both nodded and smiled.

Not if I had anything to do with it, I wanted to say, but I swallowed back my thoughts and impatiently waited for him to finish. What he had to do would take no time. Garland had asked him to return in a couple of days to help with what I would choose from his mother’s wardrobe. There wasn’t time for it today.

As soon as the tailor left, Garland began the tour of Foxworth Hall. I had really seen so little of it, perhaps a third of the tapestries, art, and statuary. Soon I would be the mistress of this mansion and part of the Foxworth legacy, but for now, it felt like I was visiting a famous museum and should be taking notes. How would I remember what artist did what painting or sculpture and where each originated? Someday in the not-so-distant future, perhaps, I would be taking a visitor through Foxworth Hall, and Garland would expect me to be familiar with and proud of what we possessed.

Because my mother had cross-examined Mrs. Steiner so much, she already knew many of the details, like how old the house was, who were the first Foxworths, how they had acquired so much land, and how the children of some distant cousins had been moved in for a while during a smallpox epidemic.

“They hired a tutor and homeschooled them in the attic,” she told my father, as we followed Garland down the hallway.

He overheard her whispering. “Education, books, have always been important to the Foxworth family,” Garland said. “Especially first editions.”

My father was quite impressed with Garland’s library and envied him for his private office in his house. That gave him some ideas for the new house he was contemplating.

“A man should have a private place for his business homework,” my father said.

My mother looked at me and rolled her eyes. “I’m for that. Right now, the whole house is his private office,” she said, and Garland laughed.