I Ain’t Afraid of No Black Bird, Part IX: An Immodest Proposal

In which our heroine receives an uninvited advance… The Hartsbinder Estate seemed even bleaker today. Daily custom had once been enough to varnish Millie’s longing with a surface of boredom and modest expectation. But there were also a few quiet sighs, breathed as one went about one’s day, which had, like a magic counter-cure, sufficed