I continued to talk with Mary, not about her parents nor her arrangement with Mr Shelley, thankfully, but about the poetry of Shakespeare, and what she called the breeches roles — girls who dressed as men, such as Viola, Rosalind, Portia, and Imogen. (I believe she mentioned two or three others whom I had not even remembered.) Odd as she unquestionably is and downcast as her countenance may be, she is a fascinating conversationalist.
Soon after Mary’s revelation, however, I found myself swept out of the breakfast room and into the grounds by Lady Croom. She wished, she said, to visit the gentlemen as they fished, and begged my guidance. I attempted to demur, since I had, at best, only a vague notion of exactly where in the park Mssrs Hodge and Shelley might be. Yet she insisted, and we se
