Before Miss Caroline left for Boston, she’d asked me to help her pack up her books. She told me that she was dying. Boston was the right place for such a boring act, she quipped. She and Miss Beryl have cemetery plots there, side by side. We bought them when Beryl came into her inheritance, Miss Caroline said. We were young then, but we wanted to make sure that we would never be apart. Beryl has already been in hers for almost a decade now. It does not seem possible, Alethea, that time can continue to pass when those you love most depart from this life. Is your heart broken, Alethea? Do you remember when I asked you that? What was your answer then? Some bivalve or crustacean? You looked so forlorn in those days. But then, when Patrick Hearn came to stay, I thought for sure that you and he were lovebirds. I have a sense for hidden affairs of the heart. I think I still do, Alethea. No one was prouder than I was when he started writing for the Commercial. The Enquirer is a rag. Their editors are under the mistaken impression that scandals and the news are one and the same. I read that feature that he wrote about you in the Commercial, Alethea. I recognized you immediately, and the boardinghouse setting confirmed it. Our Mr. Bean too. When the Commercial began to publish those letters from New Orleans—from “Lafcadio Hearn, our Southern correspondent”—I thought that you had gone down there with him. Clearly, you did not, Alethea. I am very glad to see you again before I go, but you returning to Mrs. Haslam’s was not what I had hoped for you. I wish I had something of value to offer you, Alethea, but these books and whatever else I can sell will only get me back to Boston and into a pine coffin, with Godspeed, I hope. But I want you to take those four packages over there on the bed. Have you ever seen such a shade of pink? Chinamen launderers have such peculiar taste in paper, but who better to handle silk than they, I thought. The items inside, I know, are the queerest of gifts, but I hope you will accept them in the spirit that they are being given, Alethea. May they bring you as much joy as they have brought me. If Mrs. Haslam questions you about the packages, you tell her to speak to me, and you let Patrick Hearn know about them when you have the chance. You tell him to come back to Cincinnati to see them for himself. There is nothing in New Orleans except mosquitoes and Rebs.

First time all morning I’ve seen a smile on your face, Miss. Didn’t I tell you from the start that Miss Caroline’s story was worth knowing?