When we returned to the house, Mrs. Steiner sent Dora up to my room immediately to help me out of my clothes, take them all to be washed, and, when I was ready, set out my evening dress. She made no attempt to bring in another of Garland’s mother’s. She folded back the top sheet of my bed and fluffed the pillow. I couldn’t imagine myself doing things like this for another woman, especially one younger. She closed the curtains so I wouldn’t be bothered by the afternoon sunlight and then, after I got into bed, blew out the candles.

“Wake me in an hour,” I said when she opened the door.

“Yes, ma’am.”

I think she curtsied, but I was too dozy to care. In minutes, I was asleep. Taking naps in the daytime was not something I usually did, but I did know that many women, even girls my age or a little older, too, thought a nap during the day kept them looking younger. When Dora did wake me, I was sorry I hadn’t told her two hours, but there wasn’t that much time before we would all gather for dinner.

“I have your bath drawn,” Dora said when I groaned and covered my eyes after she opened the curtains. “We haven’t put out what you wish to wear.”

We? I thought. She made it sound like she was now an indelible part of my life and would be as close as my shadow.

“I have a new skirt and bodice to wear tonight.”

This outfit I had brought was a startlingly new fashion with a pastel tulip of bell skirt that was smooth and tight over my hips down to its wide hem. The white bodice was cut narrow over my shoulders with gathers of pleats and full over my bosom. Dora looked quite surprised when she laid it all out.

“I doubt you’ll find anything like it in Mr. Foxworth’s mother’s closet,” I said.

She turned to me but kept her face frozen, clearly unsure how she should react. She was afraid to say anything that might be critical of Garland’s mother’s clothes, but she was also afraid of offending me. Instead of feeling sorry for her, though, I was annoyed. If she was going to become part of a we, she had better learn to like what I liked, and quickly, too, I thought petulantly, and then regretted it. What did the poor girl have, really? Certainly not much of a future here. It suddenly occurred to me that she was not much better off than she had been when she was her brother’s caretaker. At least then there had been the slim possibility of meeting someone who could steal her away. Whom could she meet here besides some Foxworth ghost?