much younger Edwina Godz, made back in the days before all of her hair had gone from a rich auburn to a sparkling silver-gray. There were plenty of white streaks lacing the younger Edwina's tawny mane, but the effect was both charming and attractive.

"You had it then, woman, and you've still got it now," Edwina told herself complacently. She looked up from the photo in her hands to a trio of larger pictures hanging on the wall just above the parlor fireplace. The one in the middle was the largest of the three: an old-fashioned, sepia-toned example of turn-of-the-century photographic art. A walrus-mustached man in what was clearly a very uncomfortable suit stood behind a seated lady with her hair done up in the fashion popularized by the Gibson Girl. She wore a high-necked lace dress with a small cameo brooch at her throat and she held a large bouquet of orange blossoms on her lap. She wasn't a beauty, by common cultural standards, but despite her wedding-day air of socially acceptable unease she still managed to project confidence and self-possession that was somehow ... sexy.

There was an unmistakable resemblance between Edwina and the woman in the sepia picture. "I'll bet if you'd been the one who came through Ellis Island instead of him"—her eyes flicked to the walrus-moustached gentleman in the photo—"you'd never have stood for it when the Customs officer got your name wrong. What's so hard about spelling 'Goetz' anyway? You'd have made him change it back in short order, and no arguments about it! On the other hand, I suppose I ought to be grateful that Grandpapa was such a don't-make-waves wuss about how the Customs man changed his family name. Having a name like 'Godz' is so much more effective in this business, from a marketing standpoint."

Edwina gazed fondly at this relic of her ancestors' wedding day. Marriage was such a quaint, dated concept. Still, some of the attendant trappings were alluring—on a purely