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selling them with false promises of “fresh firm fruits from the farm—just picked today …”
    As Nestor’s long, sly fingers came towards me with another slice, I thought of my father. He, too, was a thief. Mama always swore that he’d stolen both her and a horse from right under my grandfather’s nose in broad daylight. “Stealing a horse from a Gypsy is no easy feat,” she’d say, closing her eyes in bliss and sadness whenever she brought the memory to mind. I’d supposed all kinds of things about my father when I was young. In my dreams, he never appeared on Chrystie Street. Instead, he was always dancing around the apothecary’s pear tree, pouring sugar from Mama’s silver bowl down between the tree’s roots. “I like my pears sweet,” he’d say just before he would disappear.
    As I reached to take the last slice from Nestor, I caught sight of Caroline’s hand coming towards me, a wooden spoon clenched in her fist. Before I could move, she smacked the spoon on the table, so hard it made me jump. “Damn fly,” she said, staring right at me.
    Nestor let out a nervous chuckle and said, “Poor thing never had a chance.”
    Sour-faced, Caroline had opened her mouth to scold him, when she was interrupted by three sharp rings coming from a row of bells strung along the wall by the stairs. Each of the bells had been labelled for a room in the house— parlour, study, dining hall, foyer, master’s chamber, bath, library, conservatory … When the ringing came again, I saw that it was from the bell marked lady’s chamber .
    Nestor stood and took up the tea tray. “Three bells are for the lady’s maid,” he said. “Come along, Miss Fenwick. That’s you.”
    My toes burned inside my boots as I got to my feet, making me feel as if the shoes had gotten even smaller in the short time I’d been sitting at the table. Caroline’s gaze followed me as I moved to join Nestor.
    “Good luck with Chrystie Street,” she called to the butler, still holding tight to her spoon as we went out the door.

The elite do not wear the same dress twice. If you can tell us how many receptions she has in a year, how many weddings she attends, how many balls she participates in, how many dinners she gives, how many parties she goes to, how many operas or theatres she patronizes, we can approximate somewhat to the cost and size of her wardrobe. It is not unreasonable to suppose that she has two new dresses of some sort for every day in the year, or seven hundred and twenty. Now to purchase all these, to order them made and to put them on afterward consumes a vast amount of time. Indeed, the woman of society does little but doff and don dry goods.
    —George Ellington, Women of New York: or,
Social Life in the Great City, 1870

M ama’s bustle was an old flour sack stuffed with straw that she’d coax into shape whenever she was going out to see Mr. Piers. She didn’t have many dresses to choose from, but she always saved her best for him. It was cotton chintz, with a long row of buttons up the back. I loved seeing her bring it out, because it meant she would need me to help her dress.
    After I’d fastened the last button, Mama would take her cracked hand mirror and sit with me on the edge of the bed. Pointing to her reflection, she’d show me how a person’s eyes dart to the side when they lie. “Beware a woman who’s slow to smile, she’s sure to be holding a grudge.”
    I didn’t much care about what Mama had to say, I was just happy to be near her without thinking I was about to catch it, glad to look at her dark eyes and the sureness of her mouth. After a while she’d go quiet and stare at her face like it wasn’t her own. “See that spot there on my cheek? That mark was given to me when I was born. It means I was meant for something great.” Then she’d touch the spot with her fingertip. “It’s fading now,” she’d whisper. “I’m fading away.”

Helpless to the whims of fashion, a true lady always