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in a special box. She has put them on her feet, but they are far too big; Grandmother was vain of her long thin feet and high arches. Some nights, Annabel sleeps with them, for the kid soles are clean and smooth. Turned in together, they are the size of a thin doll tucked under her arm; Duty would sneeze at the lavender scent when he lay his head upon them. Heaven is certain, Grandmother had said. So it will appear in today’s pageant.
    She reconsiders: a backdrop would only mute the effect. The players are in a forest, their backs to the glowing candles and tinsel shimmer. Annabel gazes around the room, balanced on the sofa back. “Hart,” she calls out. “Come and help me tie up the curtain.”
    He appears from the hallway, tossing his juggling balls. Duty runs at his heels, ready to fetch one when it drops, for it always does. Hart glances at Annabel. “You’d better hope Mother doesn’t see you there.”
    “It’s angled against the wall,” she says, “and won’t tip. You don’t have on your costume.”
    “I’m not putting it on until the last minute.”
    “Hart, you said one should wear one’s costume beforehand, to get into character.”
    “It’s a window curtain. God’s sake, I’m not going to walk around in it.”
    “It’s embroidered in gold and hangs quite nicely, if you’ll pin it like I said. And Mother doesn’t like you talking that way. Did you practice the voices?”
    “Sister, I practiced for hours. What’s here? Your shoes? Thrown down just where I’m walking. I might have tripped!” He’s field goal kicker as well as quarterback on the freshman football team, and takes aim in perfect form, arms outspread, kicking one of her Mary Janes hard into the air. Duty is immediately after it, barking wildly. The shoe skims shining through the prisms of the chandelier and bounces off the wooden baseboard under the window, hitting the dog in the face. Duty snarls and grasps it by the strap, shaking it viciously.
    “Hart, he’s going to mark it with his teeth, and make it filthy wet!”
    Hart is after him, eyes alight. He catches the cord of the heavy brass floor lamp, which crashes to the floor resoundingly as he leaps over it. “Duty! Duty! Give it up!” The terrier races away with the shoe, skittering behind the sofa and out in a burst of speed.
    Charles comes rapidly in from the kitchen. “Annabel, get down from there! I told you I’d hang the curtain. What fell? What’s going on? Anything broken here? Are you broken?”
    “Nooooo.” She lifts her chin and peers at him through her lashes.
    “Aren’t you the coquette. Did you tease Duty to mischief?” He helps her alight, as though from a coach.
    She looks up, wide-eyed. “I never, Charles. Hart kicked my shoe to be smart.”
    “And he is, very smart, but I hope he hasn’t broken your mother’s favorite lamp.” Charles rights the pink silk shade, reaching up under the fringe to feel for the bulb. “Ah, there. It was only loose.” He twists it tight, and the lamp glows again, lighting up the Chinese scene embroidered in the silk. “You’ll undermine your own play,” he tells her seriously, “with all this drama.”
    “We haven’t hung the curtain or got the costumes on, or even lit the tree yet,” she says. “They’ll forget.”
    “You’re not actually nine years old, are you?”
    “My teacher says I’m more ten than nine, and might have skipped a grade.” She picks up her shoe and displays it on her palm. “I like your winter scarf, that you wore yesterday. It’s white.”
    “You’re more thirty than twenty,” Charles says, “and yes, my scarf is white silk. You want it for your play.”
    “Everyone is in white. Like angels.”
    “Hall closet,” Charles says, “in the sleeve of my overcoat. As long as you won’t have the dog mauling it.”
    She knew he would say yes. She hears Duty rush past again in the hallway, round the corner at the banister, and start upstairs, slowed by his ascent. He’s