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“Where is Westcliff? I want a report on the negotiations.” “They’re not back yet,” Lillian replied, meeting him in the entrance hall. She sent her father a gently caustic glance. “Where is Swift?” he demanded the minute he entered the manor. As one might have expected, the Shakespeare festival had been unmitigated torture for Thomas.

The Bowmans were the first to return on Saturday.

“Remember overturning the canoe on the pond?” “With the governess in it,” Lillian added, and they grinned at each other. Knowing how difficult it was for her sister to hold back her opinions, Daisy longed to throw her arms around her. Instead, she moved to take the handles of the perambulator. However, in pondering Lillian’s unusual restraint, Daisy realized that her sister wanted to avoid a rift with her. And if that meant having to include Matthew Swift in the family, Lillian would do her best to tolerate him. “It’s obvious you’re not going to be a spinster.” That was the closest they came to discussing Daisy’s relationship with Matthew Swift.

“Who would have ever thought,” Daisy said with a grin, “that you would end up married to a British peer, and that I would be…” She hesitated. “…a spinster.” “Don’t be silly,” Lillian said quietly. “I intend for her childhood to be different from ours,” Lillian told Daisy later, while they pushed the baby in a perambulator through the garden. “The few memories I have of our parents are o f watching Mother dress for evenings out or going to Father’s study to confess our latest mischief. And getting punished.” “Do you remember,” Daisy asked with a smile, “how Mother used to scream when we roller­skated on the pavement and knocked people over?” Lillian chuckled. “Except when it was the Astors, and then it was all right.” “Or when the twins planted a little garden and we pulled up all the potatoes before they were ripe?” “Crabbing and fishing on Long Island…” “Playing rounders…” The afternoon of “remember when” filled the sisters with a mutual glow. Before Mercedes had left, she had warned that the baby would become too accustomed to being held. “You’ll spoil her,” she had told Lillian, “and then no one will ever be able to put her down.” Lillian had retorted that there was no shortage of arms at Stony Cross Manor, and Merritt would be held as often as she liked.