ONE AFTERNOON Lilian spent hours with the Eliot genealogy books tracing back her connection to John Loring Moffat. Her father had given her some portrait copies, and on the back of one in tiny script she delineated with dates and middle names all the people who came between herself and John Loring Moffat. Judge John Loring Moffat died at Barnstable 1799, 84 years old. His son Daniel Henry was made Solicitor General of Mass. He was first stationed in Portland, province of Maine. He came to Boston and lived at Somerset Street. He built a large house in Cambridge (this house where Radcliffe College was started) and died there November 15, 1853, aged 73 years. He married Henrietta Freeman, daughter of Constant Freeman, brother of James Freeman, minister at King’s Chapel. They had thirteen children. Their oldest daughter Evelyn (Daisy) married William Arthur Eliot, 1783-1873 …

She presented Gilbert with the little card when he returned late again from work, and he looked it over briefly.

I’m glad you’re taking care of this business, Lily, he said. On his way up the stairs, he said, You should show that to Winn. He likes that sort of thing.

They were having dinner that Friday night with the other Finches. It was a bitter November evening, and Lilian brought her genealogical research with her.

Winn and Edith Finch lived in a wide bay-windowed house on Beacon Street two blocks from the Garden. Edith was a small woman with dry blinking eyes and a limp from contracting polio as a teenager. She wore a long wool dress with lacy edges and was always polite and gracious. She and Winn had met in New York where she was getting a master’s degree in architectural preservation and Winn was doing his residency at Columbia Presbyterian. It had at first surprised Lilian that Winn Finch had chosen a woman like Edith after having been involved with the more intriguing Irene Minter, but now she saw how they suited each other. Winn was a serious, conscientious person and his wife shared this attitude. Winn was larger than Gilbert, and more forceful, with a loud voice and strapping shoulders. He looked especially imposing beside the trim, limping figure of his wife, a contrast neither of them seemed to notice.

Before dinner they sat in the library with their drinks. Gilbert had two Scotches in fifteen minutes. He had been sick with the flu and looked more rumpled than usual. Being a doctor, Winn took a professional tone and inquired about his health. He regarded Gilbert solemnly.

Nothing to it, Gilbert said, as if rumors had been circulating about his health.

Lilian showed Winn Finch her research and he picked out that Louisa Moffat was a cousin of Edith’s by marriage.

Winn went to the bookshelf and pulled out the Finch genealogy — Which you have of course, he said to Lilian — and showed her where an Eliot ancestor had married a Finch.

They didn’t have any children, Winn said.