Work did not disappear with the departure of the mistress, but it became as pleasant as a holiday. “If I could make life so happy for others just by going away, I’d go more often,” Triphena said. In two weeks Lyddie and Triphena and Willie, when they could catch him, turned the huge house inside out with scrubbing and cleaning. It smelled as good as the air of coming spring. And though there was a bit of fresh snow toward the end of the month, Lyddie knew it for the sham winter it was. Spring could not be denied forever.

“Well,” said the cook one night. “The mistress earned herself a trip. I think the rest of us have, too.”

“Where will you go, ey?” asked Lyddie wistfully.

“Me?” Triphena said. She was knitting and her worn red hands fairly flew over the yarn. “I got no place I want to visit. I been to Montpelier twice. That’s enough. Boston’s too big and too dirty. I wouldn’t like it. Where would you go?”

“Home,” said Lyddie, her voice no more than a whisper.

“Home? But that’s hardly ten miles.”

Lyddie nodded. It might as well be ten thousand.

“You can go and be back in no more than a couple of days at most.”

What was the woman saying?

“Go on. Tomorrow, if you like.”

Lyddie couldn’t believe her ears. “But …”

“Who’s going to care with the mistress gone?” She turned the row and began to purl without ever looking down.

“Would it be all right?”

“If I say so,” Triphena said. “With her gone, I’m in charge, ey?” Lyddie wasn’t going to argue. “If you was to wait, the ground would thaw to mud. Better go tomorrow if it’s fair. Take a little sugar to your brother on the way.”

Lyddie opened her mouth to ask again if it would be all right, but decided not to. If Triphena said she could go, who was Lyddie to question?

She was up before the sun, but she could tell the day would be a good one. She took a lunch bucket of bread and cheese and a little packet of molded sugar. The snow in the roadway was already turning to mud, and she slung a pair of snowshoes on her back in case the tracks up the mountain were still deep in snow.

She reached the mill in less than an hour, but to her disappointment Charlie was not there.

“I think he’s off somewheres,” one of the men said. “But you can ask up at the house.”

A pretty, rather plump woman answered Lyddie’s knock. “Yes?” she said, but she was smiling.

“I come to see Charles Worthen.” Lyddie seemed to stumble over the words, which made her flush with embarrassment. “I’m his sister.”

“Of course,” the woman said. “Come in.”