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justice. Welcome.”
    I never knew how much of a toad I could feel like until I heard her kind words. “Uh, thanks,” I croaked.
    “Has Harry told you about our surprise yet?” Sasha could barely contain herself, she was so excited, but of course her voice and Harry’s never broke a whisper.
    “Surprise?” I looked puzzled at Harry, then Sasha.
    “I thought I’d leave that to you, Sash,” Harry answered.
    She beamed at both of us. “When we learned that you were interested in the Chandler journal, we checked the rest of the holdings to see if there was anything else you would find useful. And what do you think we found?”
    Harry interrupted. “ You found, Sasha. Don’t give me any of the credit.”
    “Nonsense. It’s a joint effort, Harry. Always.”
    I caught a fond glance as it was exchanged between them; as far as they were concerned, they were all alone at that moment. Okay, there was definitely something going on here. “You’re killing me with the suspense.”
    “Letters.” The manuscript librarian was practically exploding with delight. “We found part of Madam Chandler’s correspondence to a cousin in London. They were collected just recently, in England, and it’s clear they’re hers!”
    I could barely believe what she was saying. “You’ve got them here ? Now? For me ?”
    “We do indeed! There is a tiny bit of work to be done on them,” she backpedaled, in the face of her obligation to the manuscripts. “They should have been put into acid-free folders and catalogued immediately after they came to Shrewsbury. But they weren’t and so I need to deal with some mildew before it gets out of hand, but there’s little harm done. A bit of foxing, some small tears. Speaking of work,” she turned to Harry, “I still can’t find the Whitehead manuscript.”
    “I’ve found it, I’ll get it for you,” Harry replied.
    “Great!” Sasha was clearly relieved.
    Harry explained to me. “Unfortunately, we’re still sorting out things since my immediate predecessor. He was a bit careless in terms of tracking his acquisitions and deaccessioning. He came in at a time—years ago—when the library was still being treated too casually as a private collection, at a time when the family still thought it was a bit of a lark to have a good library, but not a responsibility.” He frowned. “It can be a real problem, to have someone come to study documents that were sold five years ago, but we’re getting things in order—”
    “He left things in a muddle,” Sasha agreed vehemently. “It seems to get worse the more we work on it, and I’m beginning to wonder if he didn’t liberate a few things on his way out.”
    “Sasha—”
    “I know, but I can’t see any reason in not asking—”
    Finally I couldn’t stand it any longer, and I broke in as gracefully as I could. “If I could just get set up someplace—?”
    The two librarians looked at me and burst out laughing. They managed to convey their mirth almost noiselessly.
    “Of course, you want to get started!” Sasha said.
    “I’ll see you later, Emma.” Harry left.
    Sasha led me to a carrel. “Why don’t you settle in here, and I’ll get you Madam Chandler.” A loud, metallic, grating noise from outside overrode her words. “Oh, drat, we’re still at the mercy of the workmen out there,” she informed me. “Repairing the grout or something, in the walls.”
    “Mortar?”
    “That’s it, it’s a mess and a racket and there’s been problems with the fire alarms with all their digging around. Poor Harry’s been dragged out of bed several times this month when the alarm’s gone off in the middle of the night—but you don’t need to be worried about all that.” She put the annoyance aside and got back to business. “Now there may be a few other folks in and about. We have scholars who visit for a day and a couple of interns to help with the cataloguing and such. And usually Dr. Faith Morgan is up here too, but she’s in