There were four pages of proofs for the words hurly-burly to hurry-scurry. Ditte had pinned additional quotations to the edges of each page. The red-haired hurlyburlying Scotch professor was attached to the first, and I wondered if Dr. Murray would allow it. I began to read the edits she’d made on the proof, trying to understand how they might improve the entry. Then tears were running down my face. I’d wanted to see Ditte so much, needed to see her, to talk to her. She’d said she would visit at Easter to take me out for my fifteenth birthday. She never came. It was Ditte who’d convinced Da to send me to Cauldshiels. Ditte who’d made me want to go.

I dashed the tears away.

Lizzie came into the room, startling me. She looked at Ditte’s pages, splayed on the floor.

“Esme, what are you doing?”

“Nothing,” I said.

“Oh, Essymay, I may not be able to read but I know fair well where those papers belong, and it’s not in this room,” she said.

When I made no reply, she sat on the floor opposite me. She was heavier than she used to be and didn’t look comfortable.

“These are different from your usual words,” she said, picking up a page.

“They’re proofs,” I said. “This is what the words will look like when they’re in the Dictionary.”

“You’ve been in there then, the Scrippy?”

I shrugged and started gathering up Ditte’s pages. “I couldn’t. I just looked in.”

“You can’t take words from the Scrippy anymore, Essymay. You know that.”

I settled my gaze on Ditte’s familiar handwriting on the slip pinned to the last page of proofs. “I don’t want to go back to school, Lizzie.”

“You’re lucky you have the chance to go to school,” she said.

“If you had been to school, you’d know how cruel it can be.”

“I guess it’s bound to feel that way to a child who’s had as much freedom as you, Essymay,” Lizzie soothed. “But there’s no one that can teach you here, and you’re too bright to stop your learning. It will only be for a little while, and after that you can choose to do whatever you please. You could be a teacher, or write about history like your Miss Thompson, or work on the Dictionary like Hilda Murray. Did you know she’s started working in the Scrippy?”

I didn’t. Since going to Cauldshiels I felt further away from the things I once dreamed of. When Lizzie tried to catch my eye, I looked away. She retrieved her sewing box from beneath the bed then walked to the door.

“You should eat your lunch,” she said. “And you should return those papers to the Scrippy.” She closed the door softly behind her.