She had three coffins stacked alongside the shop’s dusty brick wall—a large one, for men, a slightly smaller one, for women, and then the smallest one, for children, stacked at the very top. The room was divided between coffins and dresses—on the left, the stacked coffins, on the right, a headless, armless torso in a long muslin skirt, horsehair blooming out of its stitched shoulders, and a table scattered with bolts of cloth.

Madame Elizabeth had us sit at the hearth that straddled both sides, to recover.

“Lord, but you must be busy,” she said to me.

“Yes, I suppose,” I said.

“A full year of studies done. I am sure you are tired.” She smiled and held my gaze.

I shook my head and looked into the fire. “But is Mama well?” I said. And then, “She seems to have aid in her new pupil—”

“Emmanuel, yes.” Madame Elizabeth nodded. “A fine boy, from a good family. He and Lucien were the best of friends, before they left for Haiti. He is very handsome, too.” She directed this to Experience, the lightest of us. I had forgotten how color-conscious Madame Elizabeth was. Experience, realizing she was the intended recipient of this information, blushed and cleared her throat.

“Yes, Emmanuel’s all right,” Lucien said. He had been sitting by the coffins, wiping one of them down with a rag, and had been watching the Graces with a smile that was not altogether kind. “I wish Emmanuel’d stayed down here with us. It would have made my life less dull.”

Madame Elizabeth laughed. “More like you would have gotten into more trouble than you already do.”

“So you see,” I said, “Mama has no need of word from me.”

“Oh, Libertie,” Madame Elizabeth said, “you’re a smart girl. You know you’d whip him in any contest. Especially after a full year at school. You do not ever have to worry of being crowded out of her affections. You are too old to be jealous of a person you’ve not even met.”

I glanced over at Louisa, who was following the whole conversation with interest. Only Experience had the thoughtfulness to look away, embarrassed. She stared at the fire, working to suppress one more yawn, then stood up suddenly. “I fear, Madame Elizabeth, that we must retire,” she said very carefully, in a low tone she used when she was speaking to older people.

They stood and embraced Madame Elizabeth, who stayed in her chair, and waved to Lucien. Then they were gone.

I turned in my chair and made a show of asking Lucien about himself.

He had remained as pleasant-looking as he had been ten years earlier, and I realized, with a start, that he was lightly flirting with me, though it seemed to be more for the amusement of his mother, I realized, then any sort of genuine interest. He made his jokes and verbal flips loud enough for her to hear and when one was finished, looked sideways for her approval. Madame Elizabeth would sally him on with a tap of her fan or a pull at her shawl.