“It’s all right, Da,” he said, and turning round he beckoned to his younger brothers, who scrambled up beside him. He beckoned to the Hardman girls, who looked at one another in question, then came to a silent agreement and stood up, too.

“We’re going to marry you,” Aidan said firmly to the girls. “All of us are marrying all of you. Will you— Oh, sorry, will thee all marry us all?”

“We will!” Patience and Prudence said together, beaming. Patience bent down and murmured to Chastity, who turned her cherubic, beaming face on Rob, said loudly, “I mawwy thee!” and, toddling over, clutched him round the middle. “Kith me!” she added, and standing on tiptoe, planted a loud “Mwah!” on his cheek.

It was some time before order was restored.

Jamie’s half-healed sternum hurt amazingly, and he was not the only member of the congregation who had laughed themselves to tears. He found that he couldn’t stop, though. Claire handed him a clean handkerchief and he buried his face in it, remembered grief and present joy and fear and peace all spilling out like cold, pure water.

EVERYONE CAME DOWN the hill to the New House, where we’d unpacked the baskets the women had brought and laid out the rudiments of the wedding feast before leaving for the Meeting House. Now the kitchen was organized—mostly—chaos, as we rushed to slice fruit and meat and pie and bread, to shake the butter from its molds and ladle bowls of jelly and ketchups and sauces and drizzle honey over the roasted yams and chestnuts.

Jamie, Roger, and Young Ian had brought down three barrels of the two-year-old whisky, and Lizzie and Rachel had made enough beer to drown an army of thirsty moose; I hoped it would be enough.

I caught a glimpse of Mandy by the window, her curls tied up with a blue silk bow, earnestly poking bits of food into Chastity’s mouth like a mother robin feeding her brood, though Chastity was quite old enough to eat with a spoon by herself. I smiled and looked round for the other girls, only to find them under my nose, earnestly shoveling succotash into several large wooden bowls, chattering like magpies.

“You’re so lucky,” Fanny was saying, envy in her voice. “Three brothers! I’ve never had so much as one!”

Prudence and Patience were quite beside themselves, pink with excitement under their new starched caps, and both laughed at this.

“We will share them with thee, Frances,” Patience assured her. “Especially Rob.”

“And we will be thy sisters,” Prudence added kindly. “Thee shall not lack for family.”

I saw Fanny’s face change and she looked down to hide it, realizing only then that she had accidentally dropped a spoonful of butter beans and corn onto the table, instead of into the bowl.

“God damn it!” she said. Prudence and Patience gasped, and I stepped forward, meaning to make intervention, but Patience blinked, suddenly catching sight of something, and I turned to see what she was looking at.