He’d been about to speak. He paused, knowing he was frowning a little in response. He put his hands in his pockets. “No, ma’am. I’ve a year to go.”

Prudence said, “It’s September already.”

Abigail looked at her. As if reminding her of some agreement they’d made. Then she looked back at Foster. “You were a good student?”

“I guess I was. Got good grades.”

“Well then. It’s not too late. You’d catch up soon enough.”

“Abby,” he said. “I’ll not go back there.”

Prudence said, “No one was suggesting you return over there and live alone.”

Abby looked at her sister. Prudence said, “I’m quiet.”

“We agreed—”

“You’d talk. Why don’t you go on then and do that. Me, I’m not saying a thing.”

Abby held her gaze a little longer. Then to Foster: “Sister and I’ve talked this through. We don’t offer this lightly. If you were to stay here, finish your high school in Randolph, then you’d be prepared to go on to college.”

Gently he interrupted her. “The truth is, I’ve got most of my course work done. For a diploma. Mostly I’d be sitting killing time.”

One side of her mouth tightened and relaxed. She smiled. “So you’re a better student than you let on to be. There’s nothing wrong with that. But still, it’s too late for you to get into college for this year. So you might as well sit through that last year and get your diploma like everybody else. And perhaps spend some of that time thinking about where you want to go, what you want to do there. Now the university to Burlington’s a good school, is what I hear. But it’s only one of many. You could go anywhere you want. Down there even to Harvard College in Massachusetts. There’s Dartmouth too, not so far away. Or anywhere at all. Anywhere you wanted. Off to California, you wanted.”

“Well,” he said. “I don’t know. I hadn’t thought about that.”