But the story had had a happy ending at last, Lulu reminded herself, quickly. If not handsome, Professor Bhaer had apparently been a kind man; Jo had mentioned his good nature more than once. And he was intelligent, too, and apparently skilled at his profession of teacher, since by the end of the letters he had obviously managed to arouse in Jo a genuine interest in German. And you didn’t need thick yellow hair to be a good husband, Lulu added sternly to herself; in fact, it seemed that handsome Herr Boormann had revealed himself in the end to be very far from a prize, a nineteenth-century equivalent of one of Sophie’s passing boyfriends, looking for little beyond blue eyes and a pretty smile. The family had always said how happily married Grandma Jo had been, how she had adored her husband every bit as much as he adored her. It was just a surprise, she told herself, that Jo’s husband was not handsome and young after all; it just took a little getting used to. She read the letter again, wondering about the person with the odd name, Struwwelpeter, to whom Jo had compared the Professor, who seemed to be a character from history or literature. She had never heard of him, but would look him up. It might turn out that, whoever he was, he had been interesting in his own way. Maybe, in his own way, even a little dashing.

She replaced the letters in the box and climbed down the ladder to the landing by the stairs. As she set the ladder in the corner, the door of Tom’s room opened.

“Hi there,” he said. “I thought I heard the dancing squirrels again.”

“Hi,” she said. Then remembered that he was a scholar of literature. “Have you heard of someone called Struwwelpeter?”

“Struwwelpeter,” he nodded. “A nineteenth-century German children’s book.”

Yes, thought Lulu, that would make sense. It might even be hopeful: there were some adventurous types, she remembered, in nineteenth-century children’s books.

“What was it about?” she said.

“A collection of cautionary tales,” he said. “Struwwelpeter was a kid who never, ever combed his hair and everyone hated him because of it.”

And so went the last of Lulu’s hopes for a shred of glamour to attach to Great-Great-Grandfather Bhaer.

“Untidy hair,” she commented with some dignity, “does not make you a bad person.”

“According to the guy who wrote Struwwelpeter, it does,” said Tom. “It’s a real feel-good work, is Struwwelpeter. It also has a little girl who plays with matches and burns to death and a little boy who sucks his thumbs and someone comes to cut them off. You should read it next time you need cheering up.”

“I’ll bear that in mind,” she said. “Thanks for the suggestion.”

He tipped his finger to an imaginary hat. “Happy to oblige, ma’am.”

She began to smile; then, abruptly, stopped. Tom, like Professor Bhaer, was a foreign-born scholar, with a kind heart. He was some years older than Lulu, and, although clean-shaven, had thick brown hair. To Lulu’s alarm, she found herself noticing that Tom, at least, was apparently in the habit of employing a comb.