"Boys will be boys.. I know, I have four of 'em. Always thinkin' with their trousers. I wish ye young'uns made better choices." Lottie answered as the cleaning vapors stung her nostrils

Four boys? That didn't sound right. But Anne wouldn't tell Kate that her mother had spoken of her as a boys. "With their trousers? What do ye mean?" she asked innocently.

"Oh, I'm sorry Anne dear. That was uncouth of me. I meant that some young men only think of pleasure for themselves, relations as the Bible says. Not that yeu'd do that sort of thing."

A slight blush appeared on Anne's cheeks. "Oh no, never. Especially not after what happened to Alice." There was a painful pit in her stomach, of worry that had grown and grown over the past few weeks. "It's always the girls that pay."

"Aye, we do." Lottie answered with a nod. "So my dear, are there any young men in yer life?"

Anne frowned and scrunched her nose. "No. I don't want to have owt to do with any of them. I don't think our own boys are any better than the likes of Noah Longbottom. And I don't want to marry for a long time. It doesn't seem to bring much joy, except maybe for children. Anyway, I wouldn't be able marry for a long time, because I'm needed at home." Though plans had been forming in her mind. She was needed in Castleton as well. Could she abandon her family if the worst of her fears turned out true?

This was like talking to Hannah, Anne’s mother, all over again. She saw the ghost of her best friend in Anne's bright eyes. In their shared past as young women and mothers, Lottie and Hannah often talked about the serious things in their Sunday best down by the pier.

"Well, yer only sixteen, love. Plenty of livin' left to do. It's good to know yer own mind, though. And if yer mind stays this way, that's perfectly alright. My great aunt, bless her, she never married, found her own way, she did, up in Sunderland and seemed happy enough. Your mum would want ye to be happy, whatever that looks like for you. And I want ye to be happy too."

"Really?" Anne looked up with hopeful glitter in her eyes. The idea that Lottie would embrace whatever life she chose for herself and that even her dear mother would look down on her with pleasure, opened temporarily a wide world of possibility. "How did your great aunt live?"

There were women who didn't marry in her community, but few, and only because they couldn't find a husband, or because they had taken care of elderly parents or younger siblings for so long, that they were 'too old' to attract a spouse. This was the life Anne had quietly accepted for herself. Such women found ways to continue to be useful to their extended families, who in return provided. But she had never heard of a woman making her own way.

Time had worn Lottie's thoughts on her distant relative thin. Details once razor sharp were now mere soft impressions.

"I think she taught lessons in a school. Letters and sums. She courted no man, said those little ones were her family. She seemed happy enough with her lot. She rented a room, swept the church, simple stuff, but it was all hers. She said that ye "life was like a clean blackboard, ye should never let anyone else hold the chalk."

"Oh..." Anne said with disappointment in her voice. "Well, I couldn't do that. It was always Alice that was the smart one and was going to be a teacher. And even she had to stop after... Simon." She looked down at the magazine, suddenly feeling low. "Sorry. Shall I read on?" she asked in a small voice.