Oh, Meg, one day I shall get rich from my writing and shower you with silks and fine jewels that will put Sallie’s entire wardrobe to shame. But until the day comes, my dear, we must once again pick up our burden of poverty and continue to carry it as far as the road goes, however sore our shoulders or heavy our hearts. I know that Marmee and Father are proud of you for your good sense and good judgment, and if I were a better person, I would doubtless be so, too. But I ain’t a better person, and I think it’s too bad that you must forgo something so pretty that you wanted so, and so I will finish this letter by sending you love from your own,

Jo.

Although Emma was careful not to burden those close to her with the minutiae of her wedding preparations, she was nevertheless quietly pleased with their progress. Hers and Matthew’s would not be a splashy wedding, they had decided: they were neither of them splashy people, and Emma in particular, the prudence of New Englanders in her blood, took pride in planning an occasion that, while celebratory, at the same time avoided unnecessary show or expense. She had always been sensible with money, had never overdrawn her bank account, and derived secret, but nevertheless substantial, satisfaction in never having so much as used the one credit card that she carried with her in case of emergencies. Their wedding, she had declared to Matthew, would reflect that.

The venue was to be a simple one, a former pumping station now rented out for parties, set beside a reservoir in a small park hidden surprisingly behind a busy North London street, an angular building from the 1930s with high ceilings and long windows to capture to its fullest the dark and silver February light that both Emma and Matthew found more beautiful than summer’s blaze. Favors from friends were being called in as wedding gifts: the photographer would be a friend of Matthew’s, the musicians friends of Sophie’s, Sophie had offered to sew the bridesmaid dresses for herself and Lulu, and Lulu to provide the wedding cake. The registrar had been booked, the caterers commissioned, and Emma had even bought her wedding dress, a sensibly glamorous outfit that she could wear again if she wanted to, a silk skirt and pearl-buttoned top in a soft romantic shade somewhere between champagne, oyster, and palest almond pink, which hung now in a corner of her cupboard in which Matthew was forbidden for the duration to look, with a pair of simple satin court shoes, pretty but comfortable enough to dance in, dyed in the same color as the dress, sitting patiently beneath the hanger awaiting their day of splendor.

“It’s actually coming together quite well,” she said to Matthew one sunny Sunday morning in June, leafing through her wedding books as they sat lazily in the kitchen, finishing a pot of coffee and reveling in the luxury of little to do. She smiled. “Although it’s still not exactly the sort of day Sophie’s hoping for.” Sophie had lately taken to producing a string of suggestions for the wedding, each more outrageously extravagant than the last. “Her latest idea is for me to arrive in a glass carriage pulled by six white horses with Jamie on top playing Gershwin on the clarinet, but I think I can talk her down.”