“They were excited to see you,” Henrietta said, taking a seat on the glider. The wisteria she’d planted years ago had climbed the pillars and fanned across the scrollwork, filtering the glow from the streetlights through the leaves. For a few minutes they sat silently, eating cherries from a platter decorated with silvery fish, which one of Henrietta’s former students had made. Then Daphne went inside and returned with the parcel, which she handed to Henrietta.

“This came last month,” Daphne said, fiddling with the edge where she’d torn the paper open. “But it was meant for you, and you should have it.”

She stood with one hand on the railing. Still slight, still very erect: the resilient, resourceful person who, when Henrietta had first known her, taught herds of little boys. Her hair still golden in the leafy light and not half gray (Henrietta’s by then was completely gray), and her crushed-paper skin returned to youthful smoothness.

“Do you envy your sister her life?” Daphne said. “Even when they’re squabbling, they look like what everyone seems to think a family should look like. And you’re so good with your nieces, it makes me wonder . . .”

Henrietta shrugged. “That’s because they’re my nieces,” she said. “I’m not responsible for them all the time, just when I choose—it’s easy to be good when you just dip in now and then. But no: I love those girls, but I wouldn’t want Hester’s life. I’m glad I avoided it.”

“Me too,” Daphne said. Did that mean, I, too, am glad you avoided that life? Or, I’m glad I avoided that life myself? Neither of them mentioned Mason. Daphne retreated to the room that had once been Hester’s, which was where she always stayed, and Henrietta went to her own room and unpacked the parcel. First she looked at the letter addressed to Daphne.

It is not likely you will remember me, but we met some years ago on Appledore Island, where over the course of several weeks we were both welcomed into Mrs. Thaxter’s parlor for her evening entertainments. I hope you will not think me vain if I say I was the painter of the watercolors you claimed to admire—Mrs. Thaxter’s garden, the roses and sunflowers and so on. You were there with a friend but she came only once or twice to the evenings and I confess I can no longer recall her name. She is actually the one I am trying to find.