“I want a carriage, too. A carriage like that.” She gestured through the window at a four-wheeled carriage that had an elegant shell body slung on leather springs and a black canvas hood folded back to reveal an interior of scarlet buttoned leather. The carriage was drawn by four matching bays. A Negro coachman sat on the box while another black, either slave or servant, handed a woman up into the open coach.

“That’s a barouche,” Ridley told her.

“Barouche.” Sally tried the word and liked it.

A tall, rather cadaverous man followed the woman into the barouche. “And that,” Ridley told Sally, “is our president.”

“The skinny one!” She leaned forward to stare at Jefferson Davis who, his top hat in his hand, was standing in the carriage to finish a conversation with two men who stood on the hotel steps. His business finished, President Davis sat opposite his wife and crammed the glossy hat on his head. “Is that really Jeff Davis?” Sally asked.

“It is. He’s staying in the hotel while they find him a house.”

“I never thought I’d see a president,” Sally said, and watched wide-eyed as the barouche turned in the courtyard before clattering under the arch into Main Street. Sally smiled at Ridley. “You’re trying real hard to be nice, aren’t you?” she said, as though Ridley had personally arranged for the president of the Provisional Government of the Confederate States of America to parade for Sally’s benefit.

“I’m trying real hard,” he said, and reached across the table to take hold of her left hand. He drew it toward him and kissed her fingers. “I’m going to go on trying real hard,” he said, “so that you’ll always be happy.”

“And the baby.” Sally was beginning to feel motherly.

“And our baby,” Ridley said, though the words very nearly stuck in his craw. But he managed to smile, then took the new gold ring out of his pocket, shook it free of its small wash-leather bag and placed it on her ring finger. “You should have a wedding ring,” he explained. Sally had started to wear the antique silver ring on her right hand, and her left was consequently bare.

Sally examined the effect of the small gold ring on her finger, then laughed. “Does this mean we’re married?”

“It means you should look respectable for a landlord,” he said, then took her right hand in his and tugged the silver ring over her knuckle.

“Careful!” Sally tried to pull her hand away, but Ridley kept firm hold.

“I’m going to have it cleaned,” he said. He placed the silver ring in the wash-leather bag. “I’ll take good care of it,” he promised, though in truth he had decided that the antique ring would make a good keepsake to remember Sally by. “Now come!” He glanced at the big clock above the carving table. “We have to meet my brother.”