Meanwhile, little Frederick had grown quickly in the last year and was now nearly as big as his brother Arthur. More and more they looked like twins, even though Arthur was a few years older than Frederick.

The boys even had similar personalities. Frederick was thoughtful and studious, just like Arthur, and they both had a competitive streak. Arthur couldn’t wait to teach Frederick how to play chess, but as Frederick was still a bit young to understand the game, their favorite thing was to play in the living room. Its fireplace had not yet been built, so the room was rather cold at night, but the boys didn’t seem to care — they had it all to themselves.

Their sister Cecily kept to herself and spent most of her time painting, playing piano, or helping take care of the house. As she often found herself in charge of the boys, she grew close to them, especially Arthur, who loved playing piano almost as much as she did. Whenever Cecily was in one of her more melancholy moods, Arthur would play her favorite songs for her in hopes of cheering her up. Sometimes he would purposely flub notes or play something silly in order to distract her from whatever was clouding her thoughts. That only seemed to work some of the time.

The rest of the family had grown so accustomed to Cecily’s mild manner that they didn’t notice when it veered into gloominess. Cecily didn’t even seem aware of it herself, or at least, she didn’t feel like talking about it, because she stopped writing in her diary as frequently. One event she did write about, however, was her visit from Samuel Haddaway one Sunday afternoon.

Cecily hadn’t seen much of Samuel since their fateful kiss in the woods behind the Brayton house. She could only imagine that he was still hurt by Cecily’s admission of her love for his brother James. Whenever she passed him in town, he pretended not to see her. So she was rather surprised to see him walk past Brayton Hill one day and linger out on the front lawn as if debating whether to call on her or not.

Samuel had no idea she was watching him and nearly jumped five feet into the air when the front door opened and Cecily appeared.

“Hello, Samuel,” she said, standing on the unfinished porch. For a moment Samuel looked like he might flee, but he collected himself and stood his ground.

“Good day, Cecily,” he said in stiff politeness. “I was just walking over to Brynmor to call upon Miss Lloyd and realized I had forgotten something I wanted to give her. I was just about to go back to my house to fetch it.”

Cecily was taken aback by this explanation of his dawdling. She knew that the Haddaways and the Lloyds had become rather friendly to each other, but she didn’t know that Samuel was so attached to Josephine that he would give her a gift. He had given Cecily a gift once, the afternoon he brought the sheet music over and played a song for her. He had been so kind to her then, and now he could barely look her in the eye.

“How thoughtful of you,” Cecily said, not knowing what else to say. They stood there in silence for a moment, Samuel looking uncomfortable, and Cecily eyeing him. He was about to turn and walk back in the direction of Haddaway Hall when Cecily called his name. He stood rooted to the spot as she walked out to meet him.

“I just wanted to say…I’m sorry,” she said.

“For what?” Samuel said coldly.

Cecily was at a loss. He was obviously still hurt and pretending not to care. How could she respond to that? She decided to play along.

“Our kiss in the woods. When I told you I loved James. I wanted to say I’m sorry for that.”

Cecily thought she saw a flash of anger in his eyes, but it was quickly snuffed out. Samuel shrugged and laughed. “Oh, that. Yes, well, it was nothing, of course. Just a silly thing. You needn’t be sorry about it.”

The offhand manner in which he dismissed the whole encounter infuriated Cecily.

“How can you say that?” she asked loudly as Samuel shrank from her tone. “I lost your friendship because of that, and you call it ‘nothing’? Was I not important to you after all?”

Samuel shrugged again, a jerky, tense movement. “Not as much as you seem to think,” he threw out. “I’ve since realized how stupid I was back then. I did all sorts of foolish things that I’d rather forget about.”

“Well, I can’t forget about it,” said Cecily, her eyes starting to well up. “It’s always there, on the edge of my thoughts. You won’t speak to me anymore, none of you will. The only one who acknowledges my existence is Dorothy.”

“That’s because Dorothy is naive. She pities your family, she thinks you’re all charming and amusing. The rest of us think your father is growing more ridiculous by the day. Don’t you hear what everyone says about him?”

Cecily bristled at that, even though she had heard what they said about him. “My father is the most respected doctor in the county!” she shot back.

“He may be, but you have to admit he’s a little…off, don’t you think? I mean, look at your house! It’s the laughingstock of May Green.” He paused as his anger rose to the surface again. “It’s a good thing you rejected me, Cecily, or they’d be laughing at me, too.”

Cecily stared at Samuel for a long moment, an indignant tear rolling down her cheek.

“You’re right, then,” she said finally, regaining her composure. “I needn’t be sorry about that day in the woods. We’re better off without each other.”

With that, Cecily turned and marched calmly back into the house. Once inside, she couldn’t help but glance out the window to note Samuel’s reaction, but he was already gone, walking briskly back to Haddaway Hall. She stood in the window for a long time afterward, wondering if she might see him pass again on his way to visit Josephine, but he never reappeared.