After a time, we slowly descended, slightly apart once we were out of the shadow of the back porch, and walked round the side of the House to the front. I saw Mama’s head and shoulders rising from her usual rocker faced out to sea, the band of morning shadow slanted cross her. Mr. Cutting stood beside, his one hand upon the back of her chair, the other thrust into his pocket. Some slight communion had joined them now; I could see the silence they shared had notes within, something they could hear, together. I broke off that last Lady Rose as I passed the soft scent, and gently shook the dew from its head.

“Good morning,” Bart greeted the pair, and threw himself down upon the topmost stair, facing me. There was an instant when I stood, my one foot on the bottom stair, looking up at the trio, each in their own fashion staring down upon me. Bart’s eyes rested on my face and hair, his lips parted as he gazed, a look soft as the breath I imagined escaping him. I could not look directly at Mama, but noted how she worked on, her fingers quick with the thread, the tiny needle glinting in and out of shadow.

“Miss Thomas,” Mr. Cutting greeted me gravely. I looked at the precise nature of his hand just to the left of Mama’s shoulder, the nails well cut and polished. I nodded briefly, then turned round to regard the bright triangles of sailboats cutting across the smooth surface of the bay.

But Mr. Cutting was involved in machinations of his own. “From which direction do you think the wind blows this morning, Mr. Hunnowell?” he asked amiably.

“From the left,” Bart answered.

“The left?” Mr. Cutting sputtered.

“Yes,” Bart admitted, “I have a ghastly sense of direction.”

“But it means nothing to say it comes from the left.” I turned round. “If you move, then your left is someplace entirely different.”

“What does it mean to know the direction, exactly?” Bart replied, apprehending a deeper conversation.

“Well, young man, I am sure you know that if the wind is blowing from the north, you’re in for a cold snap.”

“You know where you stand,” I put in slowly.

Bart nodded to Mr. Cutting but answered me. “And does that information make an enormous difference to you on a summer day stretched wide and open before you?”

He had managed. He had nudged me clear of the rocks. I could smile at the easy picture he painted. “No, indeed, it does not matter which way the wind blows as long as I am warm. But it matters—in the abstract—in the world of commerce, say.”

“Of commerce?”

“Yes,” I continued. “If the wind blows from the north, men’s ships take longer to enter New York or Boston harbor, and tender cargo may be lost, and a sailor’s babe may be born without the father seeing the first blue eye open, and sweethearts may turn fickle.”