Josiah visited the Worthingtons often during July and August, as did Hortie and James, and a number of other friends. Josiah introduced Henry to them, as promised, who extended his condolences to Consuelo, and taught Annabelle several new games of cards, which delighted her no end, particularly when she beat him several times. She was enjoying the company of the good friends they saw in Newport, and although they were removed from the social whirl that summer, she felt far less isolated than she did in the city. Life seemed almost normal again here, despite the absence of her father and brother, who had often stayed in the city to work anyway.

By the time they left Newport at the end of August, she looked healthy and brown and happy, and her mother looked better too. It had been an easy, peaceful summer for them, after their tragic spring.

Once back in the city, Annabelle joined her mother doing hospital work again. And she volunteered on her own one day a week at the New York Hospital for the Relief of the Ruptured and Crippled. They were doing extraordinary work that fascinated her. She told Josiah all about it when he came to the house in the city to have tea.

“You haven’t gotten to work on any cadavers yet, have you?” he asked, pretending to be worried, and she laughed at him.

“No, I just bring food and jugs of water to the patients, but one of the nurses said I might be able to watch a surgery one day.”

“You are a remarkable girl indeed,” he said, with a broad easy grin.