When the front door closed, Mr. Ellsworth said, “Well. Melody needn’t have worried after all. ‘A credit.’ ”

Jane smiled. “Indeed.”

Still glowing with the words of Mr. Dunkirk’s praise, Jane went abovestairs and knocked on the door of Melody’s room. Such a small thing, those words, but it was the first time she could recall coming to his special notice. He had always been courtesy itself when in her company, but her attachment to him grew more from how he treated others than from any sense of his having regard for her.

She leaned her head against the door, listening for sounds within the chamber. “Melody?”

“Go away.”

Jane sighed. “Dear. Let me come in.”

The silence stretched out, during which Jane had time to examine the wood grain on the door and the age worn in the softened edges of its panels. “Melody?”

Cloth rustled within, and the key turned in the lock, unlatching the door. As Jane opened the door, she was in time to see Melody fling herself artlessly upon the bed, where the rumpled spread shewed how she had spent the time since Mr. Dunkirk’s visit. Her golden curls lay across the bed in an intricate lacework, and tears glittered on the ends of her lashes like diamonds.

Jane closed the door behind her and leaned against it, regarding her sister. “Mr. Dunkirk sends his apologies for his tardiness.”

Melody sat up with alarming speed. Her face flushed. “Is he still here?”

“No. Papa let him understand that you had twisted your ankle while out walking.” Jane sat next to her sister.

Placing her hands over her eyes, Melody groaned and fell back on the bed. “Now he thinks me clumsy as well as overexcited.”

“I am certain he does not.” Jane wiped her sister’s brow, which was hot with the force of her excitement. Reaching into the ether, Jane conjured a cooling breeze to soothe her.

Melody pulled her hands away from her eyes, though she kept her lids shut and turned her face toward the breeze. “But he does. I stammer and blush when he is present. La! Do not tell me you have failed to notice.” She opened her eyes and glared up at Jane.

“Until today, I had not the faintest notion that you had any affection for Mr. Dunkirk beyond that of a neighbour. Indeed, I had thought you were no more fond of him than of one of our uncles.” Jane smoothed the folds of her skirt, praying that her own countenance was not as transparent to feeling as Melody’s. “Have you an understanding with Mr. Dunkirk?”

Melody burst into laughter. “An understanding? My dear Jane, Mr. Dunkirk is gentleness embodied. He is grace and elegance and all that is good in a man, but he is also too conscious of propriety to betray anything beyond courtesy. This is why I had such hopes when he said he would come to call today. I had hoped that perhaps he might have begun to pay notice to me as myself instead of as simply the daughter of his neighbour.” She groaned and rolled over, burying her face in her arms. “What did you speak of while I was out acting the fool?”