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rug looked freshly beaten, the floorboards swept. Her fourteen-year-old sister was sitting up today in the room’s shabbily covered chair.
    “You are feeling better then, today, Pixie?”
    “She was even able to take exercise this afternoon,” said Hélène’s last sister, the eighteen-year-old Jacqueline.
    “Splendid! Did you go for a walk, then?”
    “Yes,” said Anne-Marie. “We walked to Mr. Foster’s dairy, and he gave us a bottle of cream for our tea.”
    “That will fatten you up!” said Hélène. “Soon we’ll be able to sell you at market.” Her sister was still pale from her recent influenza, but at least she was recovering. For a while she had been desperately worried. Mrs. Blakeley had sent her own doctor, who had left the girl a tonic and fever powders, but Anne-Marie’s recovery had been slow.
    “It is terribly stuffy in here, and today is a beautiful day for a change,” she said. “Let us have the windows open a bit. Some fresh air will do you all good.”
    A battered kettle whistled from the fireplace, as Hélène shoved the stubborn windows up. Monique retrieved the kettle and poured water over the tea leaves in Mama’s Sevres teapot, their treasure. As they waited for the tea to steep, Hélène told her sisters about her first day at the school.
    “And Beth Hilliard is to give me money to buy you some wool so that you may begin knitting for winter. I will bring it to you here. What colors shall I buy?”
    “Oh!” said Monique. “Splendid. I should like a soft baby blue, please. And we shall write a note of thanks before you leave today.”
    “Jacquie?” asked Hélène. Her sister was tall and unfashionably thin, but had their mother’s glorious black hair, which she wore braided in a crown around her head.
    “Oh, the deepest cherry red, please. One good thing about Chipping Norton is that there is plenty of wool to choose from.”
    Anne-Marie said, “I am so grateful you are enjoying your work, Hélène.”
    How she wished she could afford somewhere better for her sisters to board! But they were getting old enough that they would soon have to provide for themselves. If it were not for Anne-Marie’s youth, Jacqueline would already be searching for a post as governess.
    “How have your studies gone today?” she asked. “Did you complete the reading I gave you, Monique?”
    Her sister made a face. “Euripides! What a dreary play. So impossibly grim.”
    “Her Greek is coming on,” said Jacqueline. “And Anne-Marie’s geography is progressing. She has got Africa down. Now we are moving on to South America.”
    Hélène pulled a book out of her shoulder satchel and handed it to Jacquie. “A treat for you. Mrs. Blakeley just finished it and is now lending it to you. The duchess’s latest novel.”
    “ Carroway Park, ” Jacqueline said on a satisfied breath. “I shall gobble this up!”
    “And,” Hélène said, pulling a box from the leather satchel, “they decided on wax candles for the orphanage, so I have brought you the tallow ones that are left over. I don’t have to tell you to use them sparingly.”
    Anne-Marie began to cough. Hélène rose to pour the tea which the elder girls had forgotten in their perusal of the Duchess of Ruisdell’s newest literary publication. Pouring the hot beverage into the serviceable mugs, she asked, “Now where is this famous cream?”
    Monique said, “Oh! I’ll get it. I stored it away in the wardrobe so it would stay cool.” As she brought it out, she said, “Tell us, Hélène, have you written to the baron about Samuel’s new wardrobe?”
    Hélène said, “Yes, the letter went off yesterday. If the mail was on time, I suspect it would have arrived in London this morning.”
    Monique persisted, “Tell us about him again. You only described his condescending temperament. Is he very handsome?”
    Hélène rolled her eyes. Her middle sister believed in fairy tales and was convinced that she would one day make a splendid match.