Eliza was murmuring to herself while she and Great-aunt Joanna ate dinner that noon. “I can resist and reject, but in the end, curiosity might just get the best of me.”

Aunt Joanna’s brow pinched into a glower. “What’re ya sayin’, Eliza?”

They were sitting at the small square table, lingering over a dessert of peach cobbler made with fresh peaches Eliza had purchased from a roadside stand just up the road that morning.

Eliza held her breath, realizing she’d unthinkingly blurted her thoughts, and now her poor aunt was as befuddled as Eliza was with herself. “Ach, sorry.”

“Somethin’ must be on your mind,” her aunt pressed.

Thinking again about the unexpected note Eb had slipped between the stones up yonder, Eliza couldn’t imagine telling her aunt about it. I daresn’t!

“Didn’t your Mamm teach ya it ain’t polite to start something and not finish telling it?”

Eliza’s face burned with shame. She nodded her head, missing home all the more.

“Well then?”

Eliza wished she could hide from her aunt’s piercing eyes. What a pickle I’m in!

“Maybe your mind’s on that there diary you’re always scribblin’ in,” her aunt said.

She knows about it? Fear struck Eliza’s heart. O dear Lord God and heavenly Father, no!

“Eliza? I’m waiting.”

Whatever her aunt asked, Eliza would never, ever share anything about Eb and their friendship—if she could even call it a friendship. By now, Eb might have assumed that she hadn’t found his note, which she’d left sitting right where he’d put it. Even so, she wanted to lay eyes on it a second time to believe that it had really been there . . . and she hadn’t misread it. And she wanted to write a note back to him if she could just get out from under Aunt Joanna’s stern gaze. “I have a bad habit of muttering, Mamma says,” Eliza told her aunt at last. “I’m sorry for displeasing you, Aendi.”

“Well, mutterin’ ain’t becoming to a young woman, I’m sure you know.” Aunt Joanna sighed so long and deep, Eliza wondered if she might be taking ill. She certainly looked white in the face over there across the table. Since Eliza’s arrival, she had seemed to wither, and Eliza wished she could make her aunt’s life easier. The reason I’m here, after all, she thought guiltily.

“If ya don’t mind, I’ll get started heating up the dishwater,” Eliza said, remembering to excuse herself first. She reached for the dessert plates and forks and carried them over to the sink, still quivering inside.

Mamma never said how hard it would be, living here, she thought with a glance over her shoulder at the table. Her great-aunt had slumped down in her chair, undoubtedly exhausted after the confrontation. Persistent as she is.

———