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mourning herself, her own behaviour would compare unfavourably. Mama often advised Jenny to curb her sensibility, though Cassandra, ready as ever to defend her sister, always retorted that without it Jenny would scarcely be Jenny.
    The company conversed smoothly – Martha was good at managing these tea parties – but Jenny heard none of their words. An idea had come to her. It was an idea so vivid that it blotted out the garden, the tea table, the muslin dresses, the dog, and replaced them with the scene in her imagination. Eliza … of course,
Eliza
! Eliza with her wealth and her tragedy, her social graces, her kindness and beauty and intelligence, and her connections to the highest society of both Britain and France. Why had Jenny not seen something so obvious before?
    â€œJenny!” Martha’s voice entered Jenny’s reverie. “We are speaking of you, and you are not even aware.”
    â€œSpeaking of me?” repeated Jenny in surprise.
    â€œMadame la Comtesse was saying how much she thinks you have grown since she last saw you. You are taller than Cass now, are you not?”
    â€œA little, I think.” Jenny felt her colour rise. Everyone except Henry, who was playing with the dog, was looking at her.
    â€œAnd we all admire your graceful bearing, you know,” went on Martha.
    Jenny was bewildered. “Why … why did this subject arise?”
    â€œI am guilty, I confess,” explained Eliza, smiling. “I happened to observe to Martha how lovely you look in that white bonnet. And Martha replied that she would give anything to have curly hair like yours. So I mentioned the clear colour of your eyes – such a true brown! – and the grace of your figure.”
    â€œI have inherited Mama’s nose!” protested Jenny.
    This caused general laughter, and increased Jenny’s embarrassment. But Cass came gently to her rescue. “Your modesty becomes you better than any bonnet, Jenny.”
    â€œYes, indeed,” said Mrs Lloyd, nodding energetically. “And now, Miss Cassandra, it is
your
turn to be admired. How many months will pass before we can follow you and Mr Fowle to church? You have been engaged these two years, have you not?”
    Cassandra hated such questions. Jenny watched her sister, aware that under the classical-sculpture exterior beat a heart no less passionate than it was patient. She knew that Cass awaited only the signal from Tom to put the first stitch to her wedding dress.
    â€œYou will wait more than months, I fear, ma’am,” she told Mrs Lloyd. “Tom is the incumbent of a parish which does not provide him with enough money to put anything by for his future. If he cannot get a better living it will be several years before we can be wed.”
    â€œYou are very sanguine about it, Cass,” observed Martha sympathetically. “I should have run out of patience long before two years had passed.”
    Cassandra paused before she answered. “I
am
sanguine. People tell me it is my nature, but it does not mean I do not long to be Tom’s wife. I do, very much. But it is God’s will to keep us apart at present. We are young, and can wait a long time.”
    Jenny felt proud of her sister. Mrs Lloyd was impatient for a wedding, but Cassandra wanted a
marriage
. It was the prospect of the happiness of that marriage which enabled her to wait at Steventon, sewing her trousseau gradually as funds would allow, passing her days quietly among friends and relatives, and writing letters to Tom by candlelight when she thought Jenny was asleep.
    â€œAnd when shall we see Tom again?” asked Mary.
    Cass hesitated, then decided to speak anyway. “You will not see him at Steventon for a long time, but I believe Mama and Papa have some notion of our meeting at my brother Edward’s estate in Kent this summer.”
    Jenny understood why Cass had hesitated. Serious plans
were
afoot, then, to bring Cass and Tom