Beatrice was dismayed and hurried forward to put her arms around her friend – the first time she had ever hugged anyone, apart from her mother. After a moment of surprise, Rosa returned the embrace, and they stayed that way for several minutes, surrounded only by the frogs, and the skeletal trees, and the sparkling snow, and the quiet, before finally pulling apart.

‘It is g-good to s-see you,’ Beatrice said, hoping Rosa could hear in her voice how sincerely she meant every word.

‘And you.’ Rosa smiled, and looked at the pond. ‘But what darling frogs!’

They were unlike any found naturally in England. Instead of a drab green or brown, they were a brilliant white, shining brightly against the dark pebbles of the pond. Beatrice bent down and scooped one up in her gloved palms so that Rosa could inspect it more closely.

‘Why, they have a minty scent!’ she exclaimed, peering down at it. The large eyes bulging from its face were a pale blue and stared boldly back at her.

‘I w-was l-looking for the ghost b-butterfly in J-Japan, but f-found these instead,’ Beatrice explained. ‘They are m-mirror f-frogs.’

‘Mirror frogs?’ Rosa said. ‘How curious.’

‘They c-can allow you to s-see what a p-person r-really thinks of you.’

‘But what can you mean?’ Rosa asked, gazing back down at the frog in Beatrice’s palm. ‘How does it work?’

‘When t-two p-people hold the f-frog together,’ Beatrice said, ‘it l-lets you s-see their hon-honest opinion of y-you.’

Beatrice watched her friend carefully. She expected many people would shy away from these pretty little frogs and what they could do. In a world of insincere courtesy and forced politeness, of façades and fakery, she did not expect that many people would allow another person to know how they truly felt about them.

But a delighted smile crept over Rosa’s face and she met Beatrice’s gaze at once. ‘Shall we?’ she asked.

‘J-Just p-put your h-hands under m-mine.’

Beatrice held out her cupped palms and Rosa lifted her hands so that her black mourning gloves rested against Beatrice’s powder-blue ones. At once there was a sudden shift behind Beatrice’s eyes, and she knew her friend would be experiencing the same thing – the slightly disorienting sense of a looking glass being flipped.

And then she saw herself through Rosa’s eyes – not awkward, and ugly, and hopeless at all. Indeed, Rosa didn’t even view the stammer as evidence of any mental weakness. Beatrice felt an intense rush of glorious warmth flow through her as she realised that Rosa viewed her as rebellious, and intelligent, and kind, and courageous, and strong, and that she truly liked her more than any other woman she’d met in England. She thought of her as a friend and cared deeply about her.