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but so alone. What was Charles doing? Was her mother changing baby Joseph? He had just begun walking when Dorothea left. She stifled a racking cough, one that often came in the spring. She wondered what might happen if she became ill in this new place. Would they send her back? Did shewant to go back? No, she must find a way to help her brothers—from here.
    She rose, lit a candle, and began writing. The lead felt different. It must be the more expensive Faber brand from Germany, not the Thoreau pencils from New England that she was used to. She found the writing soothed her, and she poured out her sadness at being here alone. She wondered if her father or mother would even read her letters. She hoped they would so Charles and Joseph would know they were in her heart.
    Returning to her bed, she prayed for her brothers and for herself, asking that she might find a way to use this time of strangeness and confusion for their good or someone’s good, to be made stronger, turning her despair into healing others if not herself. Then she blew out the candle and let the sleep of exhaustion overtake her. Tomorrow would bring what it would.

Four
Instruction
    Monsieur Brun arrived at the Fiske home without books but carrying lead and paper and instruction.
    “
Brun
means a person with brown hair,” he told Dorothea. “I should like to have been named Monsieur Chevalier, which means knight. But alas we live with what we are given,
oui
mademoiselle?”
    “Oui,”
she said and curtsied, then caught herself, not certain if he was a servant like Beatrice or an elder to whom she should defer.
    “None of that.” He motioned her to stand. “Now then. I will only use the French for our lessons.”
    “But how will I know what you’re saying?” A flutter of butterflies invaded her stomach.
    Monsieur Brun said something in French and then pointed to the desk at which she sat, giving her a French word. The rest of the morning was filled with nouns. Dorothea smiled when he returned to a candle or a desk or paper, and she easily remembered the words. This wasn’t work at all! She loved the flow of the language,liked the strange sounds even when she didn’t know what he was saying, and seemed able to repeat them with the proper inflection. At the close of the lesson he spoke again in English and wrote out several words and told her she must learn to write them before his next lesson in a week.
    “You did very well, mademoiselle. A sure student with a lovely timbre to your voice.” He clicked his heels and bent at the waist as he handed her a list of fifty words. “I shall tell Madam Fiske and will look forward to your progress. She will be pleased perhaps that one in her family takes easily to the languages.”
    “Thank you.” She dropped her eyes at the compliments, as rare in her world as night-blooming cereus in a cold northern spring. “I may yet disappoint you as the lessons become more difficult.” She often disappointed.
    “I see it as a gift, your felicity with the language. It is not Miss Mary’s gift.” His blue eyes twinkled. “But I will do as you suggest and not make the comparison.” He said the last word with his lilting French accent.
    Throughout the day a bubble of joy rose up in Dorothea at the memory of Monsieur Brun’s compliments. By evening’s end, when she wrote to her brother, she tempered the joy. After all, he was in a miserable state, and she had no right to joy while he suffered and she was helpless to relieve him.

    “Miss Dix. It is a pleasure to meet you.” The tall man wore a collarless white shirt, black homespun pants, and a tweed jacket. Hetipped his hat to her. “It is my understanding you have never ridden a horse?”
    Dorothea ran her hand along the withers of the large animal they stood beside in the stable of the Fiskes’ neighbors, her palms flat against its flesh, the scent of the animal a blend of sweat and hay. Mary had already mounted and now rode in the distance, along with