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to go and not because I have a predetermined destination. I must remember that to outside eyes I am yet aimless and unfixed, with only ten pounds to my name. How careful I will have to be in all I say and do.
    Finally we establish that I will not need to leave the Rose and Crown for almost an hour. Mr. Carlton insists on sending a boy to carry my bag and put me on the train. I almost refuse, so loath am I to be any trouble to anyone, but Mr. Carlton will not hear of a young lady managing a station alone.
    â€œNot the thing at all,” he frets. “The railway is a wonderful thing, but there is every sort of a person in a station, Miss Snow. And I believe you have never taken a train before? Do you know the protocol?”
    I have not and I do not. Mr. Carlton describes to me the quirks of buying a ticket from the house adjoining the station and what must be done if the owner is not home, the importance of choosing the right carriage and the optimum seat, how to address fellow passengers, and where to stow my ticket for safekeeping.
    â€œFor ladies, I always recommend the left glove, Miss Snow. The left glove cannot be bettered for this purpose. Tickets seem to have a great propensity towards escaping, you know, and that is a very great inconvenience indeed, for the inspectors simply will not believe that you have purchased your ticket and lost it. They will insist or imply that you are trying to defraud the railway company, and that is an insult not to be borne, Miss Snow . . . hence, the left glove.”
    â€œThe left glove,” I murmur, head spinning. “Thank you so much, Mr. Carlton, I don’t know what I would do without your invaluable advice. Who would ever have thought there could be so much to think about?”
    â€œIndeed, indeed. ’Tis not like the old days. So many of my customers are uncomfortable with the changes that I have taken it upon myself to be as informative as possible to ease the path of progress. I have been pondering the idea of writing a book: Hints and Advice for the Inexperienced Traveler . Do you think such a project would find favor with the public?”
    â€œI should think it invaluable, Mr. Carlton. Do write it!”
    â€œThank you, Miss Snow. I think I shall. Disseminating knowledge is the human duty, sharing it about so that all can benefit.”
    â€œWhy, that is exactly what Miss Vennaway used to say!” I smile, then fall quiet.
    Mr. Carlton nods. “I have heard that she was a remarkable young lady. My very sincerest condolences, Miss Snow.”

Chapter Seven

    When I was six years old, and Aurelia fourteen, a queen came to the throne. I remember Aurelia beaming, her hair flying as she spun me around and around in the kitchen garden, her dress a rainbow. It was summer, and I swear the air was full of butterflies.
    â€œWhen you were born, our ruler was a king,” she told me breathlessly as we tumbled to the ground, “but now a woman heads our nation—a young woman, only four years older than I! Oh, Amy, it makes me feel as though anything is possible. They say she stepped into her new responsibility with as much equanimity as if she were stepping into a parlor for crumpets. If she is too young and foolish and feminine to be equal to the task, clearly she is unaware of it!”
    I remember the sense of optimism that infected the world, but I was too young to understand the implications of a dawning age. To me the queen seemed imaginary, like the princess who kissed a frog or the young woman who cast her hair from a tower in the storybooks. Aurelia, however, fancied a real sense of connection between herself and the monarch. They were both only children. They were both in possession of more ideas than rightly belonged in a pretty bonneted head. They had both sworn they would marry only for love. The imagined Victoria, proprietorially discussed by Aurelia and me, came to seem like a third, absentee member of our happy little