“Will not my eagerness please him more, that I am so anxious to see him?”

Any comment was forestalled when the maid knocked upon the door to announce Mr. Dunkirk and Miss Dunkirk.

Miss Dunkirk hung behind her brother, much as she had at the shop, so that Jane could easily imagine that she had not been out in society much at all. The Ellsworths welcomed the Dunkirks warmly and began the conversation with such simple forms as the weather, both how it had been and how they thought it would be. Then they turned to discussing how it had been the year previous and comparing that to the current weather for Miss Dunkirk’s benefit so that she might understand what luck she had with the fairness of the weather for her visit.

This led naturally to an inquiry as to how she found the country for riding.

“I have not seen much yet, but what I have is very nice,” Miss Dunkirk said. “I adore riding. You cannot think how much I do.”

“Indeed, Beth rides a fairer mare than any horse in my stables. I am hard pressed to keep up with her.”

“Oh, Edmund, if you would rid yourself of that old gelding then we could go much farther afield.” She laughed at her brother, shewing the first real warmth Jane had yet seen in her, and turned back to the company. “I plan to have Edmund shew me everything there is to see in the neighbourhood.”

Mr. Dunkirk laughed. “I shall hardly have time to attend to my business while you are here, I see. I will know the landscape better after your visit than I do now.”

“You must ask Jane where to take your rambles. She is always going about out-of-doors with her paintings,” Mrs. Ellsworth said.

“Do you paint, Miss Ellsworth? Edmund told me about your music and skill with glamour, but he did not tell me you painted as well.”

“I did not know,” her brother said.

Gesturing at the walls, which had several of Jane’s better pieces hanging upon them, Mrs. Ellsworth said, “All of these are her work.”

Miss Dunkirk sprang from her seat and ran to the nearest; it was a small watercolour of Melody at Lyme Regis. The light on that day had been exactly suited to shewing off the coils of her golden hair. Picked out in the golds of late-afternoon light, her hair seemed to dance on the breeze; an effect that Jane had enhanced with subtle glamour when Mr. Ellsworth had hung the picture in the drawing room. If the watercolour were ever moved, the glamour would remain tied to the spot, leaving a ghost of waves and golden hair drifting against the wall until the folds gradually frayed and unraveled back to the ether. Jane had seen such things in an aging cathedral her family had visited on holiday. For now, though, the painting and glamour intertwined to give the hint of life to the portrait.