blue petal curving against the light. But they, too, considered her a child, and sometimes she felt smothered by their solicitude. One day I will get away from it all and live my own life, she promised herself. No matter how hard it is, no matter how much I suffer, I must live. And she had bright pictures of herself living—somewhere, anywhere but in Germantown. She saw firelit faces turned toward her, young painters and writers gathered around her under the snow on a sloping roof. It was more vivid to her than the ballrooms where she danced with Caleb Barnes, 3d, or ate chicken salad with William James Russell, young gentlemen approved of by the aunts, who were, she feared, a tiny bit snobbish. If you only knew how little all this means to me, she would think with secret amusement, accepting a glass of lemonade from Caleb, smiling at William James.
For although she "came out" at a tea at Shady Lawn, carrying first Aunt Deborah's rosebuds frilled with lace, then Aunt Ann's
