You won't have to pretend you can see Felicia's great-great-
grandmother's garden book--you can really see it in the library of
Octavia House if you care to ask the Poetry Girl to show it to you--
but perhaps you'll like to pretend that you can see the seventeen year
old Felicia, wrapped in that shabby brocaded dressing gown sitting
beside the window staring at the stained title page, trying to read
the faint inked inscription. Perhaps you'll like to pretend too, that
you can hear her grandfather's voice steadying itself as he leans over
the back of the chair and translates the inscription for her. The
book's in English, you know, but that written inscription is in
French.

"It says," read her grandfather, "something like this:

"'To my little Madame Folly
Whom others call Prudence Langhorne
I present this book, for I have heard
A woman can be very happy building a garden--'"

"And whose name is this?" Felicia put her finger on the broad sprawl
after the inscription.

"It's the initial of the man who gave it to her--J.--" said her
grandfather grimly.

"And J. gave this book to Maman?"

Margot chuckled.