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?”

She shook her head for answer and then there erupted from her such a violent laugh, such a whip crack of harsh sound that I stepped back, frightened, only causing her to laugh again, harder this time, and higher, until the sound kicked free into the air of the room like a girl at the top of a swing. And then down she came, my poor mother, down again, and she covered her mouth as the terrible laugh turned to a thin wail and then a sob, though through her tears there still seemed to be a jagged smile upon her face as she held her hand out to me to come near. I went to her again, and held her against my waist, awkwardly patting her shoulders and hair.

“Look, Maisie. These are all my poor letters, returned.”

I glanced down and recognized her handwriting upon the envelopes, though she did not move her arm. Were these the letters she had written this winter?

“Go along, my girl,” Mama said sadly, lifting her arm from off the stack, “just see to whom your poor mama has been writing all this time.”

Still frightened, I leaned over her and read the name scrawled upon the top envelope: Mr. Ludlow Thomas.