As I spend more time at Shibden, I am encompassed into the Lister fold. I had been so nervous that they would resent my presence, but they are a generous folk, so different from how Anne described, or rather bemoaned them to me. From all she had told me, I had grown to dread their reception – but I imagine we are all guilty of retelling the worst aspects of a person as they have riled us, forgetting the rest of the time when they are perfectly pleasant human beings.

My presence gives them an excuse to recount old stories, long told and heard over, but fresh to my ears. I hear of the tomboy Anne and how Marian would follow her around. Her father speaks of Samuel, her brother lost like mine, whom she had only mentioned in passing to me, but I hear that they were close. Marian tells me how jealous she was when Anne and Samuel would disappear for hours on end on their horses; she was never invited. Anne brushes it off, saying that Marian was not as strong on a horse, but I can tell that it was because Anne wanted her brother to herself, as I did mine.

Her father tells me of the letters he would receive from Anne’s schools asking him to come and remove her, but he would reply that if they were incapable of teaching an intelligent young woman then they should not call themselves teachers and should quit the profession altogether, and we all laugh.

Her aunt tells me in private how Anne has given her life such joy. She describes her as peculiar but enchanting, and I like this summary. Her aunt never wanted to marry either and her brother had always promised that he would look after her and she need never settle for anyone unless she loved them – and she never loved anyone other than her family. She was bold at courting and parties and social gatherings but never met her match in a man and in time slipped into the easy and secluded daily life of Shibden. She tells me that she and Anne’s uncle were already quite old when Anne moved in with them, so Anne never saw her in her prime. It had taken some convincing for young Anne to take her aunt to Paris with her but they both recount it as a joyous time.