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cattle, named after flowers, were like the children she never had. “Mrs. Brent …”
    “They’ll not be allowed to accompany me to heaven, Mercy,” she said in a thin but firm voice. “And I know you’ll take good care of them.”
    “But Elliott and Janet …”
    “I’m leaving them the horses and wagon and whatever money is left. But they’re planning to live with Elliott’s family and hire on at the cheese factory, so there will be no place for my herd.” Beseechingly the old woman looked at Mercy. “I’m too weak to argue over this, dear. Please say you’ll take them.”
    Mercy gave her a careful squeeze of the hand. “If it will make you happy.”
    “Yes.” Letting out a sigh, Mrs. Brent lay back on her pillows to collect her breath for a moment. “The land and house go back to the squire,” she said presently. “Janet will be taking my clothes for her mother-in-law—except the nightgown I’ll be buried in, of course. Please remind her it’s the blue one.”
    “Yes, the blue one.”
    “As for the rest of my belongings—they’ve been in this house for so long that I feel as if I should leave them for whoever settles here. But I want you to take my Bible. And if there is anything else you would like to have—”
    “Mrs. Brent, I can’t talk about this anymore.” Mercy blinked the sting from her eyes.
    “Have I made you sad? I’ll stop then.” She looked up at Mercy with the most tender of expressions. “Sing to me, child?”
    “Yes, of course. What would you like to hear?”
    “Oh, you choose this time. Something about heaven?”
    “Very well.” Mercy thought for a minute, and managing to stay on key in spite of a lump in her throat, she sang one of the hymns she’d learned at chapel:
There is a land of pure delight, where saints immortal reign,
Infinite day excludes the night, and pleasures banish pain.
Could we but climb where Moses stood, and view the land-
    scape o’er,
Not Jordan’s stream, nor death’s cold flood, should fright us
    from the shore.
     
    Mrs. Brent’s eyes were closed as she lay back on the pillow, but her creased lips moved along with the words. Mercy completed two more verses, and then sang “Jesus, Still Lead On,” one of her friend’s particular favorites. After she was finished, she thought Mrs. Brent was asleep and wondered if she should leave, but then the faded eyes opened.
    “You’ve such a pure voice,” the woman said with a little smile. “Your babies will be so sweet tempered from listening to your lullabies.”
    Mercy felt a dull sadness at the futility of those words, but it wasn’t the appropriate time to contradict her just now. She returned the smile. “Thank you, Mrs. Brent. Now why don’t you try to sleep?”
    Mrs. Brent closed her eyes obediently, but her lips still moved. “God has told me that He’s going to send you a husband, Mercy.”

Chapter 4
     
    Seated at the head of the Larkspur ’s long dining room table that evening, Julia Hollis took in the homey scene before her. Savory aromas rose from plates loaded with Mrs. Herrick’s specialties and mingled with the pleasant conversation of people who had become almost family to one another.
    “Actually, they were used for weaving cloth, not for grooming,” Mr. Ellis was saying of the bone combs he and his assistant, Mr. Pitney, had uncovered in the Anwyl’s ruins today. Mr. Ellis looked every bit the archeologist with his studious gray eyes, tall, slightly stooped frame, and graying beard. “And they are not Roman, by the way.”
    “Not Roman, Mr. Ellis?” Mrs. Dearing asked from his immediate right. “But the fort is Roman, isn’t it?”
    “Oh, absolutely. But Mr. Pitney and I have come to the conclusion that there was a fortified village there sometime during the Late Iron Age—around 50 B.C. , if you will. The Romans apparently leveled this village some two hundred years later to construct their fort atop the ruins.”
    “And so the combs are