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into his eyes, quickly shuttered to one of detached interest.
    “Not that it is any of your concern, Mr. January,” she said crisply, “but my husband left me with very little. I’m sure you have already noticed that we are very down pin around here. I am, however, determined to restore Ravencroft to the prosperity it once enjoyed.” She paused for a moment and continued in a low voice. “I cannot tell you how it pained me to dispose of the books, but many of them, such as a first edition of Doctor Johnson’s dictionary, were extremely valuable. That particular collection, by the way, enabled me to purchase three mares of good stock.”
    “I see.” Jem’s noncommittal reply covered an unpleasant churning in his gut. My God, he was lucky there was a stick of furniture left in the place. The suits of armor and the tapestries in the hall had undoubtedly gone to a dealer in antiques. Were they even now gracing the neo-gothic drawing room of some jumped-up Cit?
    He followed her silently from the room, and by the time they had made their assent to the next floor, his emotions had subsided. He could not blame her for taking whatever methods were to hand. He supposed he would have done the same thing. He could always refurnish Ravencroft to his taste later, when the estate was solvent once more. But what about the one damned book he needed? Had she sold that, too? Daventry had been unsure of the title of the volume, recalling only with certainty that it had the word “rural” in the title. It looked to have been little used, he said, and it sounded extremely dull, which is why he had chosen it as a hiding place. At least, Jem reflected a little wildly, the number of tomes to be searched had been effectively diminished.
    They had climbed to the second floor by now, reaching what his employer referred to as “the bedroom wing,” and Jem was again assaulted by memory. Down that corridor had been his parents’ suites, and just two doors along that one there were his sisters’ rooms. The young widow opened each door in turn, explaining briefly the use to which the room was now being put. Jem discovered that Mrs. Carstairs had chosen his mother’s room for her own, and that the yet unseen Aunt Augusta resided in the older of his sisters’ chambers. In another corridor, Jem held his breath as Mrs. Carstairs paused outside yet another chamber.
    “This room has been unoccupied since my husband moved in here twelve years ago. We did not need the space, and since it is in an out-of-the-way location, it was simply left as it was in the days when the—the other family lived here.”
    She opened the door to reveal a large, airy, sparsely furnished bedchamber.
    Jem couldn’t stop himself. He moved into the room and twitched at the holland cover that covered the bed. He caught his breath. My God, he might have just risen from it, a gangly youth of twelve years. The colorful quilt lay as though smoothed in place only yesterday. As in a dream, he moved blindly to cupoards, a rocking horse tucked into one shadowy corner, and shelves on which lay a short lifetime full of treasures. He had nearly broken down and cried in front of everybody when he was told he would have to leave behind his model ship, and the crudely fashioned statue of the Red Indian chief Powhatten.
    “I’m so sorry my darling,” his mother had said softly, tears springing to her own blue eyes. “We must leave right now, and we can only bring what we can carry. Perhaps someday ...” But she had choked off the rest of her words and hurriedly finished filling his small valise with things a fellow could very well do without—shirts and underclothing and such.
    He held the ship in his hands, lost in thought, until he became suddenly aware that Mrs. Carstairs was staring at him, a very odd expression in those fine, butterscotch eyes. He replaced the ship with an awkward smile.
    “Please forgive me ma’am. A room unused for so long— I’m afraid my curiosity got