Then the image of her pale, importuning face, and of the pain in her voice as she spoke of the grave, returned to me. She had clasped my hands. She had looked directly into my eyes. And on that day, I had looked askance.

Forgive me, Miss Grange, I said to her pages neatly piled before me. I did not know Sorrow then. I took up the letter and its companion pages and began to read.

Maisie—

After all, it is dear you are the one I had hoped you to be. You have the gift indeed. On your own, you have managed to write your father down, just as I should have liked—slant, not straight. Now you must help me, Maisie. It is within your powers so to do. And though I never thought to show you what you have in your hands, I see now it is the place to start.

Here are several portions of my diary—the storeroom of life’s detail in which I found my fictions. The first two I send merely to give you a glimpse of my ambition, long before the sadness overtook our house. (Forgive me this vanity!)

The latter contain sketches of your father. And for now, let us say these are sketches I made of him for a love story I never finished.

Read these carefully. Consider what you see there. And, when you are ready, write me what you think.

Yours,

Nell Grange

3 August 1872

This shall be no diary. For what is that but a little coffin, a life laid down into several single narrow pages—yet such a leaky vessel! If I am to succeed at all in this profession, I must cast off the mooring of the everyday, for does not Memory herself blur the lines between what occurs now and what occurs later? And is not my aim to take memory as my muse? How she appears quick-sudden at my side and overtakes me, so I may be sitting there in Mother’s chair, my two hands up and stiff as spindles while Sue winds the yarn around and around, and still be in another time, also in that chair—when a child perhaps, and watching the snow falling into the dreary ocean—so Sue leaning toward me as she twines becomes that snow descending, softly breathing.

This book shall be bigger than a single grave; let it be the very yard!

Reader (for so I hope someday to have), reach in your hand to lift the old iron latch and give a little push against the gate. Step cross the stone threshold with me tonight, then follow toward the Grange family plot. Cast your eyes upon these five granite moons anchored to we who lie below the summer grasses.

Lean down and read with me:

CASSANDRA GRANGE, Wife of
RORIE GRANGE, Father of
GEORGE GRANGE, Brother of
SUSANNAH GRANGE, Sister of
NELL GRANGE, Self