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drove on silently and did not elucidate this remark. Nan let out a little cry as she saw a deer wandering across the road. It was a beautiful animal with a silky beige coat and silver-brown antlers. It paused to watch our progress with pensive brown eyes. Billy pointed out a salt lick to us and said that the Mellorys had a number of deer in the park, tame creatures who roamed at will over the green lawns and through the woods. He said I would see many of them near the Dower House and beside the stream.
    â€œThey don’t come too near your place, though,” he remarked. “In the past your aunt set up traps to keep them out of the garden. They used to trample her herbs and vegetables, and she waged war on them. She was a grand old woman.”
    â€œDid you know her well?”
    â€œI used to make deliveries to the house,” he said, “and once, when my ma was ill, your aunt came and watched over her and made the pain go ’way. You don’t resemble her, Miss Todd.”
    â€œShe was my mother’s sister. I take after my father.”
    We rounded a bend in the road and I saw the Dower House for the first time. It set beneath the shade of several large oaks and their large limbs cast soft purple shadows over the bleached gray stone. It was two stories with a green slate roof and a crumbly red chimney. The front door was painted green and there were green shutters at all the windows. It was a small house, compact and lovely, bearing its age with a faded grace. There were flower beds in front and gardens on both sides.
    I could find no words to express my emotions. I was speechless at the beauty and serenity of the place. It was like something out of a dream. After so many years in a shabbily furnished boarding-house, I was to live in this home, and it belonged to me. I sat staring at it, seeing it all through the soft mist of tears. Billy unloaded our luggage and set it on the porch. A sleepy brown and yellow cat crawled up to watch the process. Nan lifted her canary cage high and shooed the cat away.
    Mr. Patterson had given me the key to the door, and I opened it, directing Billy to move the bags into the front hall. I did not go inside at first. I wanted to wait a few moments until I had proper control of my emotions. I suppose this was the happiest event in my life and all by the grace of an eccentric old woman I had never known.
    â€œYou’ll need some wood chopped,” Billy said, finishing with the bags, “and I’ll come round this afternoon to cut it for you.”
    â€œThat would be nice,” Nan told him.
    â€œI’ll bring some fresh eggs and butter and milk, and you can make a list of things you’ll need in the way of provisions. Is there anything else I can do now?”
    â€œI don’t think so,” I replied. I took a few coins out of my bag, preparing to pay him. Billy refused the money. He claimed meeting us was all the payment he needed, and although he used the plural form of pronoun his eyes were on Nan alone. She gave a little curtsy, standing on the porch to watch as he drove away.
    â€œA fine lad,” she remarked, smiling to herself.
    â€œIndeed,” I replied, calmer now.
    â€œShall we go into our new home, Miss Angel?”
    I took her hand and we went inside. It was cool and dark, and I threw back the shutters to let the sun come in. In a moment the rooms were flooded with silvery white light. Although it had been closed up for a while and had a faint odor of dust and dampness, the house was fragrant of home, of decades of wood fires and flowers, spices and herbs, of people who had lived here and left. There was the aroma of old wood that had been scrubbed and waxed for years.
    Nan and I spent two happy hours exploring the place, going over each room and commenting on it and fingering all the things it held. I was pleased with the simplicity of everything. The walls were a faded gray, silvered with age, the floors golden brown