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enthusiasm. “You mustn’t devour your ice that way,” he would tell her. Or, “It’s not necessary to clap so loudly at every joke Punch makes.” Or, “If you hug the scullery maid like that, Antonia, you’ll lose her respect.” In the end, though, his daughter’s joyous nature proved too strong for Mr. Dalzell, who adored her completely. She continued to squeeze her small delights to herself as she did the kittens he took forcibly from her each time they moved on.
    Mr. Dalzell was the one fixed point in Antonia’s life. She loved him utterly.
    They chanced to be in Paris on her sixteenth birthday, and to celebrate he took her to hear Madame Galli-Marié in his favorite opera, Alceste . During the intrada he was taken with a chill. By the time they reached their hotel a fever shuddered through his narrow frame.
    Antonia, terrified, cabled the uncle she had never met. The half brothers had not exchanged a letter in more than ten years, yet the Major set out immediately for Paris, a gesture that bound Antonia to him in grateful love. Eventually the Major brought them to Detroit.
    V
    Antonia closed the door quietly. “Good afternoon, Father,” she said.
    Mr. Dalzell sat in an armchair by the fire, a bed pillow propping his head, his hands resting laxly on knees, slippered feet parallel. His maroon dressing gown moved perceptibly with each breath. Strands of hair were neatly combed across his bald skull, his jaw was faintly rosy from recent shaving. The petulant lines around his mouth had relaxed so his narrow lips were serene.
    â€œI’m sorry I’m late, Father,” she said. “I was talking to Mr. Bridger, he’s mending Uncle Andrew’s clock—he’s the best engineer at the factory. Father, it’s just as well you didn’t meet him.” She tilted her head. “Do you want to know why?”
    Rain dashed against the windows.
    When Mr. Dalzell blinked, Antonia answered her question. “You love the past, and for him it’s all the future. He’s inventing a machine that’ll take the place of a carriage. He’s positive it’ll change the world. He’s very unusual.”
    Firelight glowed on her enthusiasm. She believed, as she believed in God, that her father retained his critical mind, and she wanted him to like Tom. Accordingly, she described Tom’s ability to restore an eighteenth-century clock.
    After a few minutes she selected a bonbon from a large beribboned box, nibbling the milk chocolate coating from the nougat below, sitting on the chaise near him, her knees drawn up luxuriously, opening a book to its leather marker. “‘Natasha had not a free moment all day,’” she read, “‘and not once had time to think what lay before her. In the damp chill air, in the closeness and half dark of the swaying carriage, she pictured to herself for the first time what was in store for her at the ball, in the brightly lighted hall—music, flowers, dancing, and the tzar, all the brilliant young people of Petersburg. The prospect before her was so splendid.…’”
    Antonia’s voice grew dreamy as it always did when she read the scenes about willful, wonderful Natasha who embraced love. Mr. Dalzell’s eyes closed, his chin dropped, and Nurse Girardin, having returned, covered him with a crocheted afghan.
    â€œFather listened longer today,” Antonia said, shutting her leather-bound War and Peace .
    â€œ Oui .”
    â€œHe’s getting better. Definitely improving. Don’t you agree?”
    Nurse Girardin lifted Mr. Dalzell’s feet to the ottoman. She had never heard of a recovery in a case like Mr. Dalzell’s. Antonia was gazing at her hopefully, though, and the nurse had become very fond of the girl. “ Certainement ,” she said.
    Antonia flushed and left the sickroom. She leaned against the black walnut paneling, her eyes squeezed shut, her