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remembered something the salesgirl had said when he bought the watercolors. “There’s another artist lives round here. Buys paints in here all the time. A regular expert he is. Even sells old watercolors over at the antiques center.” Without pausing to move the boxes out of his way, Peter ran upstairs, grabbed the watercolor and his car keys, and bolted outside.
    —
    C hipping Norton, or “Chippy” to the locals, was the closest market town to Kingham and the place where Peter did any shopping he couldn’t accomplish in the village shop. It was not overrun by tourists, and thus a good deal more pleasant than many more famous Cotswold towns. The market square, on a steep hill, was lined on all sides with old stone buildings. In addition to the standard high street shops there was a small theater, to which Peter had never been, several nice looking restaurants, in which Peter had never eaten, and an antiques center.
    The bell on the door that jingled as Peter stepped inside didn’t summon any attention, so he set off through a maze of furniture, china, lamps, vases, and more, in search of watercolors. Passing a stall of old books he made a mental note to return some other day and take a closer look. On the second floor he found what he was looking for—about two dozen nicely matted and framed pieces, mostly Victorian, but some eighteenth century. He didn’t have an expert eye, but he suspected that only one or two of them were up to Amanda’s standards. From the corner of each hung a price tag on the back of which was stamped, M. WELLS, ROSE COTTAGE, CHURCHILL .
    Peter had driven through the village of Churchill every time he’d gone to Chippy but had never stopped or paid any attention to the cottages that lined the few streets. Still, it took only five minutes to find Rose Cottage, set back slightly from the Kingham road.
    As he stood on the doorstep in that uncertain interval between knocking and hearing movement within, it occurred to Peter that in seeking out M. Wells, he was following Dr. Strayer’s third instruction: meet new people. No sooner did he think this than the familiar churning stomach, clammy hands, and dizziness that always accompanied the forced meeting of strangers came over him. With one hand leaning against the stone door frame of Rose Cottage, he did his best to shake it off and concentrate on the square of paper in his jacket pocket. Perhaps if he could make tracing the watercolor his new passion, he thought, he could knock out two items on the list at once.
    The door opened to reveal a tall man with swept-back white hair who looked as though he hadn’t shaved in a week. He wore a paint-spattered and moth-eaten brown sweater and an irritated expression.
    “Selling anything?” he said.
    “No,” said Peter.
    “Come to talk about God then, have you?”
    “No, I wanted to talk to you about a watercolor.”
    The man considered Peter as he might a piece of furniture he was thinking of buying. Finally he turned, and with a slight softening of his expression said, “Right, I’ve just put the kettle on. Come in and have a cuppa then.”
    Peter followed the man through a dark and cluttered sitting room and out into a large, sunny conservatory. On an easel stood a watercolor of the view across the fields. A fine Jacobean manor house had been added where a copse of trees now stood.
    “Evenlode House,” said Peter’s host. “You can’t see it anymore, the trees have grown up so, but it’s still there, parts of it anyway.”
    “I’d no idea there was such a lovely manor house so close to Kingham,” said Peter.
    “You from Kingham then?”
    “No,” said Peter. “That is, I’m from the United States. I live in Kingham. I’m Peter Byerly.”
    “Martin,” said the artist, offering neither his last name nor a hand and disappearing into what Peter assumed must be the kitchen. “You’ll not find Evenlode House particularly lovely,” came Martin’s voice from the next room, “if