Mrs. Harris was hurrying toward them. She was of average height, her brown hair strained back into a tight bun. She wore a dress of gray poplin, its plainness relieved only by a simple gold bar brooch pinned at the throat.

“Is everything in the wagon?” Mrs. Harris asked. She did not wait for an answer. “Come along, we should be off home.”

The air around Hanna chilled. She always felt this when someone deliberately avoided looking at her. Politeness dictated that Mrs. Harris should greet whomever Bess was speaking to; the only way for Mrs. Harris to avoid doing so was to pretend Hanna wasn’t there.

Mrs. Harris put her hand on Bess’s arm so that her back was partly turned to Hanna, creating a barrier with the angle of her shoulders and the cant of her head. Hanna was only a few steps away, but she might as well have been in another county.

Bess was now climbing into the wagon, her face hidden by the brim of her bonnet.

Mrs. Harris—she’s not like her husband. Or Bess. She doesn’t want anything to do with me. She’ll never allow Bess to work at the shop.

Hanna had to resist the urge to cringe away from Mrs. Harris’s coldness, to shrink into herself, to disappear somehow. Why did people make her feel as if she was doing something wrong when she wasn’t?

Why did she let them?

Maybe I have to learn not to let them hurt me.

No. It’s not my fault. It’s theirs.

The Harrises’ wagon was pulling away. Bess sat on the seat next to her mother. As they drove past Hanna, Bess put her hand to one side and fluttered her fingers, the smallest of movements.

She can’t even say goodbye to me without having to hide it.

Hanna knew now that she was going to have to figure out how to sew faster than she had ever sewed before.

Later that afternoon, she chose the fabric for the sample dress. She knew she wanted a cotton lawn, with a fine weave that was light and airy and smooth to the touch. Lawn was ideal for the hottest days of summer, and LaForge would soon be baking under the ruthless prairie sun. After some deliberation, she settled on a pale green lawn sprigged with leaves and round berries a shade darker than the background.

Next she looked through the box of patterns that she had ordered for the shop’s opening, and studied the dresses in the two most recent issues of Godey’s Lady’s Book. She finally chose one of the patterns and adapted it to include her own ideas. It would be a day dress, a fairly simple design, but the lovely lawn would make it suitable as a visiting dress as well.