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With regard to that largeness I felt in Mr. Newton, I thought it was best to be candid about who I was. Mr. Newton allowed his admittedly pale but, even so, well-shaped eyebrows to lift inquiringly.

"I found that I preferred to read. It’s not hard to hide from Alice. And I fear I’ve allowed my niece Annie to do more than her share of the household chores."

"She was with you the other night, at the performance."

"Yes. It turns out that she would like to board a steamship under an assumed name and pass herself off as a brazen actress, but nevertheless, she is a remarkably useful girl, and in my opinion, it’s only a matter of months before some widower with a dozen or more small children offers to make her the happiest girl in the world."

I had never talked this way before. The voice coming out of my mouth was strange to my ears and yet strangely my own. I tempted myself to go on and on. "It was the fate of my poor mother to devote her life to a man of exceptional vanity who already had six daughters. That’s his likeness on the wall beside the door, there."

Thomas Newton stood and stepped over to the daguerreotype. My father had been in the horse business then, so he was carrying a whip and wearing a top hat. Mr. Newton said, "A handsome man."

"That was the first daguerreotype ever made in Quincy. A man came through, and he and my father found each other as if by predestination."

When he turned to look at me, Mr. Newton seemed very merry, though eager to hide his merriment. Alice entered with a tray and set it down on the tea table with emphasis. She said, "I found some cakes, and I’ve checked them over for animal hair, so you may eat them with assurance." She sat down and poured the tea, immediately commencing to draw out Mr. Newton. "And so, I am told you are off to Kansas, sir."

"Yes, I—"

"Your antecedents are in Boston, are they not?"

"Medford, ma’am."

"Near enough."

"You have parents, brothers and sisters?"

"My father and brothers have a sailmaking factory."

"You don’t work with them, then?"

"I did for a while. And I was a minister of religion just out of college."

"And which sect would that have been?"

"We practice Unitarianism, ma’am."

"That’s hardly a sect of religion, sir."

Thomas Newton kept smiling but said, "Many would say that any practice performed by New Englanders soon amounts to a religion."

Alice handed him a cup of tea without changing her expression. She set mine on the table, and I reached for it. I expected her to inquire further into Mr. Newton’s history, but she grew a bit defensive.

"We are Methodists, and we do not condemn our brethren in our church for beliefs and domestic arrangements that are not like our own. Dr. Hawkins just gave a sermon on that very topic this Sunday past."

"No, ma’am."

"And you have funds of your own that your father gave you for this Kansas adventure?"

"I worked for him in his sailmaking factory, yes. I also have associated myself with the Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Company."

"I see."

Now Alice fell silent, drinking her tea. It was as if the words "Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Company" startled or discomposed her, and she couldn’t think of what to say.

I said, "Mr. Newton is an abolitionist, Alice. Just like Miriam was."

All she said was, "I should have known." By this she meant that an abolitionist was just the sort of person with whom I would crown my life with her by bringing home.

"Yes, sister, you should have known, because Harriet knew the day we met Mr. Newton."

Alice cleared her throat.

Now we sat quietly for some ten minutes, sipping our tea and eating the cakes. Alice sat in her rocking chair, rocking furiously. From time to time, Thomas Newton glanced at the likeness of my father on the wall. He still seemed amused, which I found pleasant as well as curious. Nothing Alice said touched me, because, without naming it to myself, I knew that I would soon be on my way to Kansas.

CHAPTER 4

I Embark on the Ida Marie

In packing household furniture, for moving, have each box numbered,