In the meantime, she still had half a sandwich and a beach full of creatures and plants she’d yet to explore. Putting aside the other questions—and the marked-up book, too, since it only bred more of them—she finished her lunch and gathered a new armful of supplies for her afternoon. She’d spend an hour or two out collecting a few specimens for closer inspection and then get her microscope out later. She’d already determined that three o’clock would be the perfect time to set up the device at the desk by the window, when the light would be streaming inside in quantities ideal for reflecting off the mirror.

It was enough to make a girl positively giddy. She’d only had the microscope for a few months—Mama and Bram had given it to her for Christmas—and she’d already examined the cellular structure of everything she had even a mild curiosity about at Telford Hall. But who knew what might beg for a closer look here?

Armed with a basket full of slides and containers, pincers, and a scalpel, she all but skipped back down the path to the shore. She’d get a sample of the seagrasses and see if they were any different from the kind that grew at home. Perhaps she’d find a small jelly washed ashore that she could look at. For that matter, looking at water itself under magnification could reveal the most fascinating small oddities in it. How would seawater appear, as opposed to the fresh variety from the small lake at Telford Hall?

She spent a happy two hours collecting a variety of samples, blissfully ignoring the laughter and shouts from other tourists along the beach. None of them cared a whit who she was or what she was doing, which suited her perfectly. There was no brother to scowl at her and warn her to adjust her hat before she burned even worse. No sister to chide her for crouching down in an unladylike fashion. No mother to beg her to come and sit with her for a while.

Though she had a feeling she’d miss that last one in another day or two. Time spent with Mama was rarely anything but pleasant.

And, she granted as she winced upon brushing her hand against her nose, a few warnings about better protecting her skin from the sun might not have gone awry.