I closed my eyes and listened to him. Was it so? Perhaps what I had read had nothing to do with me. It was an old story, one perhaps best forgotten. Agitated, I stepped away from Jonathan and bent down to examine the roots of a lilac bush I had picked from that morning.

“Maisie,” he began.

But I was not ready for the declaration.

“I was thinking just then of Miss Grange,” I said, straightening.

“Ah,” he replied, “poor creature.”

“Why ever name her poor?”

He drew nearer to me. “She is all alone, my dear.” He put his hand upon a branch of the dogwood tree above me and said again, “Maisie.”

“She may be alone”—I could not keep myself from mention of Miss Grange—sharp pines were newly risen in the midst of this city garden—“but she is not a sorrowful figure.”

“No?” He shrugged. “I should have thought she would be.” We were silent awhile.

“I have been reading sections of her diary,” I blurted.

“Oh? How is that?”

“She sent them to me.”

“Ah? I did not know you were so familiar.”

Then, seeing I wished to speak more on it, he hurriedly asked, “And what is in this diary?”

He must know. If he was to be the one at my side, then he must know what Miss Grange had asked of me. Further, he must know of Miss Grange’s link, I thought wildly. He should know what happened before I was born.

“A love story.”

“Ah.” His lips were very pink beneath his brown mustaches.

“And—” I looked up at him. He smiled in reply. “I am to do something with it.”

“Why ever would you do anything but read it?” he broke out cheerfully, but seeing it weighed on me, he grew serious again.

“Because it—” I could not bear it. I could not speak it. He waited for me to finish, ever attentive to the rushes of my conversation, but I had stopped. We were quiet.

“Maisie?” Now his voice seemed to strain round my familiar name.

“Yes.” I had bent once more over the flowering bush.

“Maisie. Dear. I must ask you a question.”

We had arrived. I straightened up but kept my back to him.

“I have already asked your mother for the right—”