Just for the pleasure of it, she picked up the letter and read it again, piecing together the story behind it. It seemed that at one point, Grandma Jo had taken a position as a governess in New York, staying in what appeared to be a boardinghouse, and teaching, from the sound of them, two rather spoilt and precocious children. The other boarders, it seemed, included an educated single woman (for a moment, Lulu wondered just what her life had been like, and what circumstances might have led her to live in a New York boardinghouse), an older professor and … yes, there he was, Friedrich Bhaer, her great-great-grandfather, with “hair as thick as a haystack and yellow as a field of corn … eyes as blue as the heavens.” He had been fair-haired, attractive, and charming, and, yes, of course, thought Lulu a little wistfully, now it fell into place, had provided the almost too perfect genetic blueprint for his great-great-granddaughter Sophie Atwater. But there was a twist to the story, she reminded herself, then. It turned out that yellow-haired and charming young Friedrich Bhaer had fallen in love, not with another charming beauty, but with gawky and outspoken Grandma Jo. He had not been embarrassed by her, as Sasha Goncharoff had by Lulu, or looked at her sister in alarm when she spoke, as Lulu knew that Matthew sometimes looked secretly at Emma; on the contrary, he had fallen in love with her, he had married her, and he and their children and their grandchildren had all adored her. That was Mom’s word. They had adored her.

From the pocket of her jeans, her mobile phone rang. It was her mother.

“Hi, honey,” said Fee. “Are you okay? I looked into the store to see you, but Sasha said he thought you’d gone home.”

“Yes, I’m fine,” said Lulu. “Why were you at the store? I thought you had clients today.”

“A couple canceled this morning, so I made a run to that nice bookshop. Are you all right? You’re not sick or anything?”

“I’m fine, Mom.” Lulu paused. This was not how she had planned to deliver the news to her mother, but there appeared now to be little alternative. “Mr. Goncharoff’s sold the shop,” she said.

“Oh.”

In spite of everything, Lulu smiled to herself as she pictured her mother weighing the most appropriate blend of supportiveness, encouragement, discretion, and concern.

“How are you doing?” she asked after a moment.

“Okay,” said Lulu. “I’d known it was coming, after all.”

“That’s good,” said Fee. “You sound okay, anyway, so that’s something. Where are you?”

“At home, actually. In the attic. Mr. Goncharoff gave me the day off, so I thought I’d have another look for the recipe book.”

“Oh.”

There was a pause while Fee struggled with herself, and lost.

“You know, sweetie,” she said slowly, then. “We still have eight weeks left before September.”

At which, Lulu lost all inclination to smile.

“Mom,” she said. “If you so much as mention the word ‘university’ to me, I am terminating this conversation.”