“More real than true, I think, Mr. Cutting.”

“What a curious distinction, Miss Thomas.”

“Oh, she means nothing by it, Mr. Cutting.”

“Don’t fret, Mama; someone far greater than I made that distinction long ago.”

“Yes, but what did you mean to say about it, Miss Thomas?”

“I think”—Mama motioned to me—“Maisie is restless.” I rolled my eyes at her and she smiled in reply. “Go on, dear, I can see the chafe marks around your mouth.”

I bowed low to Mr. Cutting and suggested, if he really wished to know what I meant by the distinction, he read Mrs. Gaskell’s Life of Charlotte Brontë. “Poor girl,” he answered, shaking his head. “All of them dead in a moment.”

And with that profound aesthetic comment in my ears, I left them upon the piazza and wandered down the steps, quite troubled. Mama’s manner toward Mr. Cutting had begun to alarm me. She did not seem to mind the fact that he was an outrageous bore. Instead, it appeared his very stolidity attracted her, and she leaned into the man when he spoke, as though he were a rare flower, and not the old black umbrella he far more naturally resembled.

I stared out upon the familiar harbor, anxious and annoyed. Jonathan was to come at the end of a month to collect us—and nothing had begun here. Nothing save Mr. Cutting’s attention and Mama’s discomfiting lack of clarity.

And thus two weeks passed by, and I spent my days in a state of rising agitation. Had not Miss Grange meant me to play a part? I was ready now to do whatever she asked. Still she had not called for me, and my hours were passed instead with a book beside Papa’s grave, or in reluctant observation of Mama’s folly—or flummoxed before the daily ardent letter from Jonathan, to which I tried to fashion a suitable reply.

One evening, with yet another one of these unanswerables in my hand, I emerged from the writing room and stopped short. There was baggage in the front hall, the gleaming leather valises of a large family lined in a tight row by the door. As we passed through, Mr. Coates brought in three hatboxes awkwardly piled in his arms. Whose arrival did these announce? I wondered, a vague hope stirring. Faintly, I heard Mrs. French above us in the upstairs passage, showing the new guests to their rooms.

“The Hunnowells are here,” Mama ventured, pointing to the ornate H embossed on every valise.

“No, Mama, surely not; there is enough luggage here for eight people!”

She smiled and answered, “And how many would you count Mrs. Hunnowell as being?”

“Rather, it is Bart Hunnowell I would …” But my voice trailed off at the sound of footsteps behind us.