They crossed the floor and stood before her in a row, and she raised a lorgnette and studied each of their faces with a kind of detachment.

“And I had resigned myself to never setting eyes on you. How pleasant to be surprised at my age,” she said. “I can certainly see Elizabeth in you”—motioning at Nathaniel—“but you, young man, you’re the image of your father. I remember him clearly, and that strange quiet boy he had with him—why, yes, that’s who you look like.”

“That would be my half brother, Lockwood,” Drew said, wishing someone would open a window.

“Was that his name? I guess I’ve forgotten. And yours? Your note said Nathaniel, Eliot, and Andrew, but which is which? Elizabeth sent me birth announcements—she was thoughtful enough to do me that one courtesy—but I cannot recall who came when.”

After Nathaniel cleared that up for her, she gestured for them to sit down. He took the only other chair, his brothers a worn velvet settee, from which puffs of dust arose when they sat, the dust motes swirling in the slats of hot sunlight. Arthurlene returned with a pitcher of lemonade and three glasses. Thirst overcoming their manners, the boys drained theirs with greedy gulps.

“My, you must be parched!” said Aunt Judith. “But then, I don’t suppose you are accustomed to such heat in Maine. Are you still living there? Oh, no, that’s right. Boston. The last I heard from your mother, you had moved to Boston.”

“Right after I was born,” answered Nathaniel, “and after Dad’s business got going. That’s where Dad was from, maybe you remember?”

“I do,” she said, and then plied them with questions about their mother and father and themselves, her manner neither hostile nor friendly but the way Mother’s was with Lockwood: correct. When she was done, she begged their pardon for interrogating them so vigorously, but you see, boys, apart from the birth announcements, your mother has not seen fit to communicate with me—this with a venom that her mellifluous drawl not only failed to conceal but in fact emphasized.

“Really? We always thought it was the other way—” Drew started, but Nathaniel cut him off with a sharp look, and seeing a chance to flatter Aunt Judith, told her that their mother had always spoken highly of her, referring to her as “my dear aunt Judith.”

“She always said that if we ever got to Beaufort, to be sure to call on you, and so here we are.”

The old woman leaned a little forward, folding her hands in her lap, the veins in them prominent and blue.