“I?” Lauretta said. “You know I never plan. Things happen to me. I’ve thought of returning to the stage. I’m not too old. A woman may be any age and play Shakespeare’s ladies—except Juliet, of course; and I’ve seen some essay even that role who were on the grave side of fifty!” She laughed. “There used to be a Negro boy who followed you about everywhere—adored you. Do you have him still?”

“No, he’s a man now and free. He lives in Philadelphia where he teaches in a school.”

“My goodness! And do you still work at your own little school?”

“Not much, I look in once in a while, but Selma has taken it over, and Pauline helps her.”

“Selma.” Lauretta frowned.

“Leon’s sister,” Sarah said as though she were making an introduction. “Bonard’s wife.”

“I hope she did not think harshly of me—”

“Selma lives in her own world, and I don’t believe she minded that you and Bonard went off together. It clarified the situation for her, in a way.”

“Yes, I thought it would,” Lauretta said eagerly. “You might even say she has me to thank.”

“If I were you, I shouldn’t expect expressions of gratitude.”

“I suppose you—you never wrote about it, not one word. But you must have hated me for what I told you—” She paused, but Sarah remained silent. “We haven’t spoken of, even mentioned—” For the first time both women were embarrassed and cautious. “You never wrote about her. It was a girl? Yes, I remember, certainly it was. I let you name her.”

“Rachel.”

“Did she live?”

“Yes.”

“I have a child! How very odd that seems to me. Where is she? Have someone bring her to us!”

“She is out walking with Adam Davis. They are to be married in October after she becomes eighteen.”

“Eighteen years! Can you believe it?”

“Yes,” Sarah said. “I have lived them here.”

“Is she at all like me?” Sarah did not reply. “Like her father then? Is she plain or pretty, sensible like you or romantic like me?”

Sarah’s voice faltered when she spoke. “I don’t compare her. I only think of her as herself.”

“You say she is to marry Adam Davis. How does he stand in the line of the family?”

“He is the elder son, twenty-four years old, a lawyer of promise, it is said. He attended the University of Virginia at Charlottesville. He had appeared to love her ever since they were children, but we thought that would change when he spent four years away from her. It did not.”

“Well, he at any rate would seem to be romantic! Is he delicate or robust?”

“Adam is a healthy young man,” Sarah allowed, “if not perhaps as hearty as his father and brother.”

“My daughter will be mistress of a great plantation!”