“Mr. Lanman forgot his hat last night,” Mama began. “I found it upon the settee in the hall.”

“Oh,” said I noncommittally.

“I noticed it needs a little brushup,” she continued, “and so I’ve had it sent down to Mr. Martin’s.”

“Mama,” I said, and then stopped.

“Yes, Maisie?” She was delighted.

The postman’s bell rang and then our own bell sounded in the front hall. I quieted, trying to think of how to represent to Mama what had transpired.

“Yes, Maisie?” she repeated.

But Jessie appeared in the doorway just then. And I looked up to see she carried a thick package wrapped in the familiar dark green oilcloth, and I sprang to take it. But before I could reach her, she had put it on the table directly in front of Mama. I stood stock-still in a panic of confusion. Why had Miss Grange sent Mama a copy of her diary, as well?

“Whatever is this?” Mama asked. And before I could reply, she had taken it up in her hands and had begun to unwrap it.

“Mama.” I nearly leapt toward her, but she had torn the protective paper from the bundle of pages inside.

“Oh,” she said abruptly. “They are from Grange House.”

“Yes,” I said, bewildered, looking down upon what seemed to be a stack of black-bordered letters.

She swept the broken packet to her chest, then she looked up at me and said, “Leave me, Maisie.”

“Mama?”

With an effort, she focused her gaze upon me and gave her brave smile. “Please.”

For an hour or so, I left her, until in an agony of curiosity, I reentered. Mama still sat where I had left her, sunk awkwardly into a dining room chair at an angle from the table.

“Mama?”

She jumped at the sound of my voice, so absorbed was she in reading what she held in her hand.

“Yes, Maisie? What is it?” And as she turned to me, she casually laid her arm across the stack of envelopes before her, so I could not see to whom the letters were addressed.

She had never done such a thing before, never hidden something from me in such plain sight, and I turned away, startled, and walked to the window. Not a leaf, not a blade of grass, not a passerby stirred. Coyly charming, the June morning turned a placid face to the warming sun. Troubled, I took a turn from the window, walking to right the painting between the side windows, and then round once more, to stop at the other side of my mother in her seat.

She looked at me and down at the envelopes, and then up at me once more, in such silent agony, I drew immediately to her side and put my hand upon her shoulder. “What is it, Mama? What has happened?”