Her letter opened with her usual queries about my health and schooling. I quickly skimmed past that part. She had arrived safely in Bitter Springs. Epiny’s first letter about reaching her new home was determinedly optimistic, but I sensed the gap between her expectations and the reality she now confronted. I sat on my bunk and read it with sympathy and bemusement.

The women of the household work as hard as the men, right alongside the servants. Truly, the saying that “Men but work from sun to sun, woman’s work is never done!” is true of Lady Kester’s household. In the hours after dinner, when the light is dim and you might think some rest was due us, one of us will read or make music for the others, allowing our minds to drift a bit, but our ever-busy hands go on with such mundane tasks as shelling dried peas or using a drop-spindle to make thread of wool (I am proud to say I have become quite good at this chore!) or unraveling old sweaters and blankets so that the yarn can be reused to make useful items. Lady Kester wastes nothing, not a scrap of fabric nor a minute of time.

Spink and I have our own dear little cottage, built of stone, as that is what we have an abundance of here. It used to be the milk house, and had fallen into disrepair after the last two milk cows died. When Lady Kester knew we were coming, she decided that we would relish a little privacy of our own, and so she had her daughters do their best to clean and tighten it up for us before we arrived. The inside of it was freshly whitewashed, and Spink’s sister Gera has given us the quilt that she had sewn for her own hope chest. There is only the one room, of course, but it is ample for the little furniture we have.