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the settee and hitched his ankle up onto his knee. “You look lovely today, Patricia.”
    And when didn’t her little sister look stunning? Rachel put the plate of cookies back down with a thump and stuffed half of one in her mouth to keep her from grinding her teeth uselessly.
    Her sister twirled, the rose-sprigged calico flaring about her feet and letting white cotton eyelets peek out from underneath her skirt. “I had a trunk full of practical dresses made, but sensible doesn’t have to mean ugly.”
    Rachel humphed. Patricia’s lace collar added considerable cost to the dress when the money could have been used for useful supplies instead.
    “Rachel disapproves.” Patricia’s mouth scrunched to the side in a sorry attempt to look chastened. “But then, if she’d ordered my dresses, they’d all be brown, black, or gray. And you can’t catch a man’s eye in those.”
    Was her sister already feeling restless? Rachel narrowed her eyes. “If you’ve a need to catch a man’s eye other than Everett’s, you ought to stay in town and let Neil go alone.”
    Patricia slapped a hand to her heart. “I can’t believe you’d think such a thing.” She dropped in the chair on the other side of Dex. “Now tell me, what married man ain’t gonna want his wife to look a vision?”
    “ Isn’t ,” Rachel said through clenched teeth. More because of how much Patricia’s eyelashes fluttered at Dex than her poor grammar.
    “ Ain’t works perfectly fine. You know what I meant.” Patricia turned her big eyes back on Dex. “And she calls me insensible. Why fight over words when they don’t hurt nobody? School ain’t going to make you a better person.”
    Dex folded his arms over his chest. “I agree, it won’t.”
    Rachel caught the quick glance he threw her way before he angled his body to face her little sister. She tried to smile but couldn’t keep her lips from trembling, so she let the frown have its reign. Surely some man in her future would want a woman of an improved mind.
    “Rachel says people who don’t go to school are doomed to have closed minds. Says how else are people going to improve themselves?”
    And with that, her little sister took away the teeny tiniest hope Dex might have wanted a woman like her. The little vixen. Rachel pressed her finger into her cookie until she poked a hole clean through.
    Dex glanced at her from the corner of his eye. “School won’t improve your sister any—”
    “I just don’t get why she wants a silly degree anyway.” Patricia didn’t even flinch at the scowl Rachel sent her way. “They won’t give you a man’s job unless they’re trying to save money. And they’d still have to be desperate.”
    Patricia turned back to Dex. “I think she ought to come with us. She could do Neil’s books or keep me company or teach school. No one would think she was uppity for those things.”
    He rubbed at the back of his neck. “She’d certainly be a help—”
    “And you’re right about no one around here wanting to marry her since she acts so snooty about things—”
    “Yoo-hoo, Patsy!” A melodic voice belonging to one of the myriad girls her sister giggled with in the afternoons called from the front entrance.
    Swiping the cookie plate, Patricia left without a wave of good-bye.
    No one wanted to marry her? Was she that haughty?
    Rachel bowed her head, staring down at the crumbs on the table as though a dunce cap pressed against her brow. She couldn’t deny what Patricia had accused her of saying.
    But she hadn’t known how hard school was for some people until she’d started working with Allen.
    The silence Patricia left in her wake grew long. Should she apologize?
    Dex’s hand ran agitatedly over the tablecloth. “Um, that’s not what I said exactly, and I need to apologize for my earlier attitude.”
    Rachel frowned. “No, I’m the one that said those things, but—”
    “But those of us without schooling are in a world of hurt.” He dropped his