“The child’s mind must be left to itself. I might nurture it, that’s all. Feed their bodies with nourishing, healthy food, allow them the freedom to explore. Teach them to think for themselves, not memorize what other people say they ought to. Quite frankly, I’m sick of hearing about the sublimity of Milton, the elegance and harmony of Pope, the original, untaught genius of Shakespeare.”

“You don’t think Shakespeare a genius?”

I leaned toward her. “I do, of course. But they must find their own genius. Not read from primers but compose their own stories, in their own words, for there’s nothing as true as the genuine emotions of the heart, before they’ve learned not to feel them, not to think their own thoughts—I want them to follow the path of their own minds, even if it leads them off the beaten track. To make their own way.”

The widow drained her cup, revealing nothing. But I was unbridled and couldn’t stop.

“Integrity, creativity, self-discipline. If they could learn to value their own minds, not the minds of others, of men, they might refuse trivialities in favor of depth, and true human purpose, a new society, made by them, reflected in them. That, I believe, is the highest virtue.”

The widow poured a long, thin trail of tea into her cup, and then mine until it nearly overflowed, her tremor more pronounced. “And you believe my husband would approve?”

Here it was, the question I dreaded most. I cleared my throat. “No, Mrs. Burgh. I feel sure he would most decidedly disapprove.”

Widow Burgh inclined toward the back of her chair. She studied her tea while I waited, terrified. Finally she clapped her eyes on me. They were clear as a bell, and blue. “Then we quite agree,” she said.

“That he would disapprove?”

“Quite,” she said, setting her cup onto its saucer with a punctuating clink. “But Reverend Burgh is dead, and has been for some years. And I am the one with the money now, Miss Wollstonecraft. And have been waiting for you for a very long time.”

My lungs expanded, as if taking my first breath in a new world, little bird.

“And I’ve been waiting for you, Mrs. Burgh. For even longer.”

We quickly came to agreement on the particulars. The widow found us an enormous empty house in her own village, Newington Green, north of London, and a handful of families who would send their daughters, ages seven to sixteen, including two families who would board them, which would pay for our extra expenses. I prepared to leave London, taking Eliza and Everina with me, sure that Fanny was set to join us. I could see in her face that she wanted to, desperately so, but her lungs had taken a turn for the worse over the winter, the tuberculosis lodging inside her.