Barbara’s gaze again met Lily’s in the mirror. “That will be my family, back from church, for all the good it did them. Let’s go down and introduce ye.”

* * *

Henry was the easiest of all the lads to like. Simon, the eldest, who was nearly twelve, was prone to moods and sulks which made him difficult to know, and Walter, although he was Lily’s age, shared none of Lily’s interests. Henry, though, while he was only nine, was always game for anything, and had a cheerful nature.

It was Henry who had set her straight about the family.

“Archie’s not our daddie,” he said, grinning at the thought. “Well, in a way he is, but not our real one. If ye count the months, ye’ll see there’s no way we could be true brothers. We were born too close together. We’re all foundlings. Archie got us from the church when we were bairns, and every year the elders give him money so he’ll keep us. Leastways, that’s what Walter says, and Walter kens most things.”

Lily, having never met a foundling, asked why they were called that.

“No one wanted us when we were born, so they just left us at the church when nobody was looking, and the minister did find us there. When ye get found,” he said, “ye are a foundling.”

That made sense. “I’m an orphan.”

“Near enough. Ye’ll fit right in with us,” he promised.

And she did, adjusting to the rhythm of this newer household as she learned about its people.

At its head was Archie Browne, a thin man who was quick to laugh and rarely raised his voice. He was a notary, a job that Lily only partly understood, but which involved his writing things for other people and sometimes accompanying them to the harbor to bear witness to things that were being done. It kept him very busy.

Then came Barbara, who most often went by her name—Barbara Malcolm—though she also went by Mrs. Browne, as she was Archie’s wife. One thing Lily had noticed: the lads all called Archie just that, nothing else, but they called Barbara “Minnie” as though she were truly their mother.

And Barbara plainly adored them all back—even Simon, who shrugged off her hugs and seemed happiest sitting alone. Simon, often unreachable in his dark moods, was the brother that Lily found most unpredictable.

“Simon’s all right,” Henry told her. “He’s good with his fists, but ye’ll not see him use them much. He isn’t Matthew.”

“Who’s Matthew?”

She didn’t receive a reply, because Henry pretended that he hadn’t heard her—a tactic she’d learn he used often, as did they all.

But that was how Lily first found out there was a fourth brother.

She heard him mentioned from time to time, always as if it had slipped in by accident, always as quickly caught, always passed over uncomfortably. From the few pieces she did hear, it seemed he had run off not long ago, and that before he’d gone there’d been an argument, and that they hadn’t heard anything from him since, so she did not press for details.