She had no answer. She wished that Sir William was with her, that she might ask his advice on the matter, yet she also knew that this question was not his to decide; it had to be settled, in the end, by Michael and Kathleen and by Aisling herself. But why spoil the girl’s continuing recovery from grief and rejection by asking it? She sensed that Aisling had no wish to address anything but the moment-to-moment wonders of this burning summer. She had ‘adopted’ a goat she named Iris. She sat in the long grass, stroking Iris’s nose and pulling softly on her long ears. She fed her apples and dandelion leaves. She addressed her as ‘my dearest little pet’. She asked Miss Maeve if they might take the donkey-cart into Ennistymon and purchase a bell to hang around Iris’s neck, and they went and bought the bell and Aisling said ‘now Iris will never again be lost’.

Then, one day, another girl appeared on the strand. She was about Aisling’s age. She was dressed in a simple linen shift. Her hair was wild.

When she saw the Misses McKinnon and Aisling with them, she came skipping over to where they sat, under a frayed parasol. Maeve McKinnon got up and laid a kiss on the child’s head.

‘This is Charlotte O’Connor,’ she said. ‘Her father is the schoolteacher. And here, Charlotte, are our new friends, Mrs Morrissey and her niece, Aisling.’

‘New friends?’ said Charlotte. ‘I would like to have some new friends, so I would.’

‘Well then,’ said Maeve, why do you and Aisling not run off and see if you can find some cowrie shells?’

The two girls looked at each other and Aisling soon enough jumped up. Iris the goat, tethered to a post in the sand, also got to her feet, and the sound of the tinkling bell competed for a moment with the onrush of the sea. Aisling went to her and untied the tether.

‘This is Iris,’ she said to Charlotte O’Connor, ‘and she is mine now, but you can play with her. She is very gentle.’

Charlotte straight away began to pet the goat. Then, without saying anything more, the girls went scampering off, with Iris bounding after them and what Clorinda saw in the way Aisling now moved, with ease and grace, was a manifestation of new and simple joy. Perhaps the McKinnon sisters saw it too, because Miss Elizabeth turned to Clorinda and said, ‘Maeve and I, we have been thinking, with the summer being here and so fine a summer at that … we have been constantly saying that it might be a shame to return Aisling to the city. Haven’t we, Maeve?’

‘Oh indeed,’ said Maeve. ‘Of course, we know you have to get back to Bath, for your wedding, Clorinda. But why not let Aisling stay with us a little longer? Charlotte O’Connor is a sweet child and will surely be her friend. And then there is Iris, from whom Aisling does not wish to be parted. Why separate her from all this, to go back to a life of sadness?’