“Welcome to the world, honey,” said Fee. “She has friends who got her tickets, it seems. Anyway, she’s coming here to dinner on Thursday of next week, which frankly isn’t all that convenient for me, either, as your father will still be in Africa, and it’s the day I have that all-day workshop at the Royal Free. So what I’ll do is make a casserole on Wednesday, and I’ll ask you, Lulu, to heat it up with some side dishes on Thursday, and I’ll join you all as soon as I can, probably in time for dessert. Okay?”

“Why don’t you ask her to come to our place?” said Lulu. “It’s closer to the Royal Free, and I can easily cook something.”

“Oh, would you?” said Fee. “That would make my life easier, I must say. If it’s okay with Charlie, of course.”

“Actually, I’d like it,” said Charlie. “I’m sort of strangely intrigued with Sophie’s impression, and I want to compare it to the original.”

“It’s dead-on accurate,” said Sophie. “Isn’t it, Lulu? You just wait, Charles, you won’t be able to look her in the face.”

“Well, so long as you don’t start doing it in front of her.” Fee narrowed her eyes at her youngest. “And you’re not going to show her that tattoo, either, are you, honey?”

“It’s barely three degrees outside, Mom,” said Sophie. “Even I’m not taking my socks off for anyone. Not even the ghost of Hamlet’s snobby old aunt from Boston.”

“Exactly who is this aunt?” said Joanna the following week, as Lulu prepared to go home early to cook a dinner of roast pork with applesauce, mashed potatoes, and green beans—Aunt Amy disapproved of exotic flavors.

“She’s my mother’s distant cousin.” Lulu smiled at Joanna, who had already begun to feel like a friend. “She’s quite rich and very sort of commanding. She’s on the board of various charities and things, and she’s used to bossing people around. She’s the only person I know who makes my mother nervous.”

“She sounds rather alarming,” said Joanna. Joanna liked quiet and serenity, and was given to wondering aloud just how it had come about that she had ended up owning a toy shop. “Maybe you should use your Rottweiler-walking voice on her.”

“I don’t think anyone’s ever used a Rottweiler-walking voice on Aunt Amy,” said Lulu. “If they did, she’d bite them back and probably give them rabies.” She climbed into her coat, wound her scarf round her neck against the chill of the winter night, and struck an attitude of bravery at the shop’s door as she looked back into the bright, inviting interior. “Good-bye, Joanna,” she said. “If I don’t make it through the night, it’s been really nice working with you. Think fondly of your former assistant who suffered the horrible fate of being Aunt Amified.”

Aunt Amy was a tall woman, with soft gold hair framing a hawklike face, and a fondness for well-cut tweed skirt suits.

“I’ve never been to this part of town before,” she told her nieces when she arrived at the flat. “The cab went through some questionable parts on the way here, I must say, but this part seems safe enough.”