“I should hope not!” Mr. Lanman gave an embarrassed chuckle. “He’s a bit of a questionable character; or rather, what he proposes is questionable—but his words often blaze a pathway straight to the heart.” He smiled more quietly now.

“What makes his character so questionable?”

“Now your curiosity is aroused, and I’m guilty of having introduced you into distinctly unfeminine company.”

“But please tell me of him, please do. I know so little.”

“Indeed, Miss Thomas. You have never struck me as knowing little.” His voice had softened, and the look he gave me then, I valued more than the loss of an answer.

Behind him, our two mothers stirred into action as if sensing the newly risen heat of the scene between us.

“Jonathan, my dear. We must leave these busy ladies. Mrs. Thomas has just told me of their plans to go abroad this spring.”

He started at his mother’s voice but did not, I think, register what she had said before I myself had uttered a little gasp of surprise.

“Ah,” he said, turning to smile at my mother. “I am afraid the lights of the Brooklyn season will have lost their brightest orbs.”

Mama bantered him. “Hardly, Mr. Lanman, when your own mother stays behind. Shame on you for such hyperbole.”

Jonathan Lanman bowed in reply. “At least grant me the privilege, then, of calling upon you and your daughter in the intervening days between now and partial darkness.”

“We would be delighted,” Mama responded in her old manner.

Mr. Lanman nodded good-bye to me, and his mother took my hand again in farewell. The door closed behind them, carrying out into the hall the bright vistas and fresh prospects of a newly discovered landscape. Mama did not look at me, but seated herself back at her desk and commenced to write.

“Abroad, Mama?”

She lifted her chin, keeping her eyes on her page, and smiled. “Yes.”

One hand upon the top of the page, she scribbled several more lines, blotted her work, and finally looked up.

“We must make you scarce in the face of someone’s certain interest,” she said quietly.

“Mama?”

But she did not reply.

Nor did we travel abroad, for, on second thought, Mama decided it best to fling wide the doors to “someone’s” interest instead. And glad of a direction, I floated along in the wake of her excitement, pleasantly caught up in the change of scene.