This first desire was granted in full when Adelia served the last winter ham from their stores for dinner, along with pickled beets and potatoes. Caleum and Libbie joined them that evening as well, such as had not happened in a long time outside of Sunday, so Magnus Merian was much satisfied: able to forget the day’s politics and his own physical complaints.

Adelia, pleased to have her family’s full company, delighted in spoiling Caleum with extra helpings and the promise of a rice pudding for dessert, and spoke of a bonnet she thought Libbie must have before she went home. Her love of their visits was matched only by her crossness whenever it was time for them to go, so that when she mentioned dessert Caleum knew to steel himself, as it was usually around this time that her bad mood would descend.

“Aunt Adelia, have you started your garden yet?” he asked, steering conversation toward a topic sure to please her.

“Yes,” she answered, “but I’m already afraid it won’t be as nice as last year. There was a frost the last two nights running, which in likelihood ruined half of it, and if not the frost then the birds.”

There had been no frost, of course, and the birds were no worse than any other year. Magnus looked at Caleum with a wry smile, as if to say he should have known better.

“It doesn’t matter anyway,” she went on. “No one appreciates the garden anymore. I remember the first time I saw it. I thought it was the most beautiful place I had ever seen, and it was a privilege when your grandmother Sanne invited me to help her with the planting and weeding of it.”

“We all love your garden,” Libbie interjected. “I think it is the most beautiful I’ve seen.”

“Thank you,” Adelia answered, pleased but not satisfied.

From the time he noticed it, Caleum was amazed that older people could be so sensitive, or else vain, and especially his aunt. He thought it was something one should naturally shed with age, like a first skin. In time he had come to find it reassuring, as a promise that certain things in life, and one’s character especially, never change after a certain point. Because of this he was happy to see his wife fawn over his aunt’s garden, or else little things that gave her pleasure or that inflamed her pride, much as she delighted in treating him at times like a boy. It made him feel the world was stable and unflagging in some things, no matter what happened around them. “I will come round Saturday and help with planting, Auntie,” he told her then, “and I will bring bell jars in case of another frost.”

“I will get the rice pudding,” she said, smiling as she left the table. “There are raisins in it, Caleum.”

He smiled at her in turn but suppressed the greater part of his joy at this dessert, from embarrassment that something so simple always brought him such pleasure but also from feeling he had been coerced.

It was as Magnus and Caleum waited for Adelia and Libbie, who had gotten up to help, to return from the kitchen that the knocker at the front door sounded. It was a very deep and assured rapping that startled them, because no one ever used the instrument, and in time they had come to think of it as purely ornamental. Caleum rose to go to answer the insistent visitor, not knowing who on earth could be out there on the other side.

When he returned he announced their neighbor, Rudolph Stanton, had come to pay a visit. Everyone was taken by surprise that the mighty man should come down from his place at Acre to see them, instead of sending a messenger as was his usual custom no matter what the business, let alone at such an advanced hour.

“Is it really so unusual?” Magnus asked, as he went to the door, relishing the honor. “He’s a man just like I am, and he isn’t so far above us after all for all his fancy titles and what not.”

When he greeted Mr. Stanton he recalled in his mind the great turn his neighbor had once done him all those years back, and there was a real warmth he felt for him, though of course he did not dare express it in familiar terms. “Good evening, Mr. Stanton,” he said, when he entered the parlor where the other was waiting. “What an honor to have you here.”

“I did not mean to interrupt your dinner,” Stanton replied. “I didn’t mean that at all, but I figured better your leisure time than working hours.”

“It is nothing to think of. Can I offer you anything?”

“Whatever you’re having,” Stanton answered.

Magnus was a bit astounded to have Stanton accept his hospitality, and worried he hadn’t anything suitable for the man. His father, Merian, would have produced something rare and exquisite that was the best of its kind, but he himself had never been one for entertaining visitors or all that kind of indulgence. “Well, we were just having a rice pudding my wife made.”

“Then I will join you in that,” Stanton said. “If it is not too much a bother.”

Caleum stood up at once when Stanton came to the table, and the women looked at each other, uncertain what to do, for in that part of the world he was grand as a duke, maybe even a prince, and was in fact directly related to one of each.

“Please pardon my intrusion,” Stanton said, as he sat down, “but Magnus has been bragging on your rice pudding all over the county, Mrs. Merian, and I was wondering whether it is everything he has said.”

Adelia beamed broadly and nearly giggled aloud. “Stop,” she said. Libbie smiled into her napkin as Adelia took up a bowl, which was not fancy and silver laid, as in some homes, but plain. She then served Mr. Stanton a generous portion, feeling like a girl as he tucked into it.

Their guest still had not announced his business, and as he ate Magnus wondered whether the man’s mind had not gone off wandering, or whether he was not perhaps just sad over in that great big hall by himself, and perhaps really had come over only to share in a spot of pudding.

“It is the best I have ever tasted, Adelia,” Stanton said, as he finished the bowl. “May I call you Adelia? There wouldn’t happen to be any more, would there?”

Libbie served him this time, watching him smile from the corner of her eye. He was perhaps ten years older than Magnus but looked nothing like his age, being a bachelor and having no doubt access to such potions as only men of his station did to maintain themselves.

“You have a fine place here, Magnus Merian. You have truly done well,” he said, reclining in his seat with such ease one would have thought he dined there every evening. “It is too seldom that I visit with my neighbors, I’m afraid.”

“I suspect, Mr. Stanton,” Magnus said, “that you are far too busy with your time for much visiting.”

“True,” Stanton answered, pleased that someone acknowledged how hard he labored and how scarce his time was. “Between my farm and the business of the Legislature, I don’t always know where an entire day has gotten off to when it’s over and done.”

If before his presence there seemed unreal, it began to seem perfectly normal to all of them as he tucked into his second helping of rice pudding and indulged in the counting of his time — such as had always been a great pastime there at Stonehouses.

“As I rode up I noticed a very handsome sundial out front. Do you mind if ask where you acquired it?”

“My father built it,” Magnus answered with pride.

“He was a quite a man, Jasper Merian,” Stanton said. “I always wished I had known him better. And how is your father, young lady?”

Libbie sat up straight as she could. “He is well, sir. Thank you for your thoughtful inquiry.”

Stanton smiled. “What a fine family you have, Magnus. Do you mind if I call you that?”

“Not at all, sir,” Merian said, flattered by such familiarity.

“And how is your holding?” he asked, turning to Caleum, for it was really him he had come to see.

Caleum had not spoken at all other than to greet their guest, and, if the others had forgotten, he still wondered what he wanted there, as ever since Stanton entered the hall he knew it must be very serious news that he was only delaying in delivering.