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 in Florence on the bedside table, Evelyn got into the black gown she had worn in Venice and the pearls that still worried Westlake—could they be real? And then they all went to the Subscription Dance at the Golf Club, and Hoagland danced with Evelyn while Joe danced with Charlotte, and then Jimmy Roberts danced with Evelyn, while Joe danced with Gladys.

The winter mornings were so still that the silence hummed. The birch trees were white against white. Joe carried out Hope, wrapped in white wool and fur. Their bright blue shadows followed them across the meadow; the snow squeaked under his feet. The little girl's cheeks were as red as the berries cased in ice along the frozen stream.

Evelyn loved her baby. She bathed her by the kitchen stove, she washed bottles, she even tried—once—to make a little dress. "I must say she is a changed girl," Kate said. But life raged through Evelyn's body; she felt, as she sat by Hope's crib trying to keep her mind on The Care and Feeding of Infants, as a rocket must feel as it splits the sky the second before it bursts. And then Joe would come home, and be content to sit all evening reading, too tired to keep awake after ten o'clock.