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then touched her sleeve. “My dear, are you feeling well? You’ve gone quite pale.”
    Isobel’s fingers clenched on the pamphlet and she quickly slipped it into her reticule, nodding quickly at Margaret. “Yes, of course. As you say, these rooms get so overheated.”
    Yet as they moved out into the cool night air, the crowds dispersing, the queer, shivery feeling did not leave Isobel. Reaching into her reticule to touch the hidden pamphlet, she wondered, with a thrill of trepidation, if she had discovered a way to escape her life in Boston after all.

Chapter Three

    Boston, 1838
    Isobel stood in front of the bow-fronted building that housed the offices of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions and tried to summon the courage to enter. She’d received a note from the Board’s General Secretary, Mr. Rufus Anderson, that morning, saying he would be happy for her to call at his offices at four o’clock. It was now three minutes before that hour, and Isobel felt an alarming flutter of nerves in her middle; her luncheon of braised trout sat queasily in her stomach. Drawing a deep breath, she squared her shoulders, her fingers tightening around the bone handle of her reticule, and marched up the steps to the building.
    Her knock was answered after a minute or two by a harried looking young man with ink-stained fingers and a crooked cravat. Isobel eyed him with some trepidation, as well as an innate disapproval. “I have an appointment with Mr. Anderson?” she said, her tone turning a bit more imperious than she would have liked because of her nerves. She always became more stiff and formal when she was anxious or uncertain.
    “Of course, you must be Miss Moore. Won’t you come in?” He stepped aside, and Isobel sailed into an unprepossessing front room with piles of books and pamphlets covering most of the chairs and the rather rickety table. She looked around in dismay, half-wanting to back out already, but it was too late.
    Rufus Anderson opened the door to his private study and beckoned her in. “Miss Moore, I’m delighted to welcome you. Please do come in.” He gestured to the clerk. “Jacob, fetch us some tea, would you, please.”
    Gingerly Isobel made her way past the stacks of books into a far more comfortable room. Mr. Anderson gestured for her to sit down and he returned to the other side of the desk, steepling his fingers under his chin. “I was very pleased to receive your letter,” he said, smiling, his eyes twinkling behind his spectacles. “And indeed pleased to hear of your family’s interest in missions.”
    “You were?” Isobel said. She shifted in her seat, frowning in uneasy confusion. “My family’s interest… but I wrote to you on my own behalf, Mr. Anderson, not that of my family.”
    Anderson shrugged this aside. “Forgive my presumption, but naturally I assumed your interest in missions is your family’s interest, Miss Moore. Perhaps I should tell you of some of our more pressing needs, and then you might relate these to your father?” He raised his eyebrows, expectant, already drawing a sheet of paper, no doubt detailing those needs, towards him.
    Isobel’s face warmed and her hands were slippery inside her thin gloves. “I am afraid, Mr. Anderson, that you have been mistaken. Perhaps I should have been clearer in my letter to you.”
    Anderson gave a little shake of his head. He was still smiling, but a furrow had appeared between his eyebrows. “I’m afraid I don’t understand, Miss Moore.”
    This was not, Isobel thought with some panic, going at all how she’d anticipated. She drew a shaky breath. “The truth is, sir, that my family is not even aware of this visit.”
    Anderson sat forward, his smile fading as the furrow deepened. “Oh? I’m afraid then I’m not clear on why you have visited, Miss Moore.”
    Just then Jacob knocked on the door, and Isobel was given a few moments to compose herself as he bustled in with the tea things. Mr.