I heard Jonathan’s voice downstairs. And still in the clasp of her pages, I descended to meet him. I do not remember anything of what we spoke that evening, simply that the vision of my younger papa seemed to follow Jonathan everywhere. And I could not resist comparing Mr. Lanman to Miss Grange’s rendering of the man in the woods. Would Jonathan ever have said such a thing about heroes and heroines? Indeed not, I reflected as I sat observing him playing cribbage with Mama, his fine brow concentrated above the board. Indeed, nowhere that evening, nor the next, could I find in Mr. Lanman the easy movement of mind and spirit so clearly set down upon the pages of her diary. Did it matter? No, I asserted to my now-habitual page. But then, almost guiltily, I returned to read and reread the sections she had given me. And thus, the following days found me bent to her pages, listening to their secret tune.

Often I found myself speaking the woman’s lines aloud in the privacy of my schoolroom—a woman I should like to be: a woman unafraid to show the sometime contradictions of her mind. And then, once or twice, visions of Mr. Hunnowell sprang up—standing before me with my bowl of raspberries in his hands, or waving from the rocks. He might have fit the part of the man far better than Mr. Lanman. But then—in order to be fair—hastily, I searched my memory instead for a more provoking image—the inexplicable and contradictory parlor man at breakfast, for example—thus banishing him as a mere pretender for the role.

Though no man could fit the part as neatly as had my young father, still I welcomed these sketches of a love story, gladly taking them as a kind of primer. For the conversations between the man and the woman suggested what I would like to see of love. So Miss Grange and my father became unlikely characters in the romance I would choose to follow—more, to echo. And I took their words to heart.

Had I recorded the many voyages I traveled up and down the stairs of our house, my mind struggling to put the diary in its place, one might have thought a new geography was mapped. Up to the top, and what I sought for myself—the soaring freedom of Miss Grange’s mind—beckoned me; then down I’d march—down to where Mama sat, or Miss Matchless stopped me with a question, or where Jonathan looked up as I entered and rushed to draw me to his side.