The guests fell quiet as we entered, and all eyes turned on Lily. I squeezed her hand to reassure her. Aidan came over to where we stood. I fancied his gaze lingered on me longer than was proper. You’re imagining things, I told myself as I nervously smoothed down my navy-blue dress, the one with the white lace collar. I nudged Lily toward him.

He took her by the hand and led her to the nearest guest. I backed away into a dim corner of the room. As the guests gushed over Lily, I took my chance to look at the two women Kathleen had described. My first thought was that they could have stepped right off the first-class deck of the Titanic. Their satin dresses rustled as they moved, and fine necklaces glittered in the light of the crystal chandelier that hung above the table. Their pale, white hands were adorned with diamond rings, and their hair was coiffed in the latest style; a chignon, Kathleen would have called it. They were not much older than myself, I thought, although their sophisticated bearing made them seem older.

As I watched them smile brightly at their host, one of them letting her hand linger on his wrist, I was overcome with the sense of being invisible. Invisibility was not a new state for me—back home, it had often spared me from my mother’s wrath—but this was different. I felt like a nobody—a plain little bird among the colorful peacocks—and my heart shrank inside me.

I tore my glance away from the women to see how Lily was doing. Her father was making a circle of the table, still holding her by the hand. She nodded solemnly to each guest and stood stoically as the sallow-faced, single gentleman tickled her under the chin. And when one of the coiffed women pulled her to her bosom in an awkward hug, Lily wrinkled her nose—probably at the woman’s perfume.

When he was finished with the introductions, her father brought her back to me. “You may take her up to bed now, Miss Sweeney,” he said. And, turning away from me, he went back to his guests.

I was about to leave when the older gentleman turned to look directly at me. “Sweeney?” he said. “You wouldn’t be Delia Sweeney, by any chance?”

I felt dizzy and clutched Lily’s hand so hard she wrenched it away from me. The next minute seemed like an hour. My heart thumped in my chest and I was unable to utter a word.

Aidan O’Hanlon broke the silence. “Answer Mr. Boyle’s question, Miss Sweeney.”