Elisabeth smiled and nodded. Though she seemed shy as a doe, she made no effort to pull free of Maggie’s hand.

“I was hoping that you and I could talk together,” Maggie ventured. Her throat felt raw, her eyes puffy and swollen.

The little girl shook her head.

“You do know how to talk, though, don’t you, Elisabeth? You’re just pretending that you can’t.”

With no sign of rancor Elisabeth drew her hand from Maggie’s and retreated a step. She looked as though she might actually speak, and Maggie was waiting, holding her breath, when a gray-haired woman in a navy-blue bombazine dress suddenly filled the open doorway.

“There you are, you little scamp!” the woman cried good-naturedly, and the moment was spoiled. Elisabeth gave Maggie a long, searching look and then turned to face her nanny.

The governess smiled at Maggie. “Hello, there, miss,” she said in an accent that might have been American or Canadian. “I’m Miss Cora Fielding. Who are you?”

Maggie rose to her feet, smoothing her skirts, very conscious of her mussed-up hair. “Maggie Chamberlin,” she said. “Pleased to meet you.”

“Merciful heavens,” Cora breathed, putting one hand to her sizable breast. “We hail from the same part of the world, you and I.”

Maggie nodded, just as pleased as Cora to find someone from home.

Cora was flushed, and her bright blue eyes shone with delight. “I was born and raised in Chicago, myself. What about you?”

“I’ve lived all over,” Maggie said, a little self-conscious about her early life. “My family traveled with a—with a circus.”

At this Elisabeth’s eyes widened. Maggie knew that it was all the child could do to keep from asking about the animals, the performers, the big tents. She saw the little girl bite down on her lower lip.

“A circus!” Cora crowed, giving Elisabeth a gentle nudge. “Did you hear that, Miss McKenna?”

Elisabeth turned and scampered out, and Cora, of course, was obliged to follow. She did linger in the doorway for moment, though, her fleshy hand gripping the knob, her expression sad.

“Poor little mite,” she observed distractedly. “What do you suppose could have happened to her that she’d freeze up her tongue like that?”

Maggie didn’t have an answer, of course, but it seemed that none was expected of her anyway. She opened her reticule and began unpacking, and Cora closed the door softly and went after her charge.