Three years we plotted and planned while Ethpeal cared for her Auntie Winnifreth with the help of the two Ambrose sisters, as patient with her as Ernest's lovely sisters had always been. There were times I knew Ethpeal wanted to throw caution to the wind and simply challenge her mother. And times I found her looking out the window, tears trickling down her cheeks, confessing her impulse to run away and leave the family to her mother.

"If you do," I said, "you must take me with ...