“Bowmans never banter about Rounders,” Daisy informed her. “That would be sacrilegious.”

“You like games, Annabelle,” Lillian said cheerfully. “And Rounders is the best game of all.”

“I like the kind that is played at a table,” Annabelle retorted. “With proper clothes on.”

“Clothing is vastly overrated,” came Daisy’s airy reply.

Annabelle was learning that the price of having friends meant that on occasion one was compelled to defer to the group’s wishes even if they went against one’s own inclinations. All the same, this morning Annabelle had privately attempted to sway Evie to her side, unable to fathom that the girl truly intended to strip down to her drawers out in the open. But Evie was rashly determined to fall in with the Bowmans’ plans, seeming to consider it as part of a self-devised program to embolden herself. “I w-want to be more like them,” she had confided to Annabelle. “They’re so free and daring. They fear nothing.”

Staring at the girl’s eager face, Annabelle had given in with a huge sigh. “Oh, all right. As long as no one sees us, I suppose it will be fine. Though I can’t think of any purpose it will serve.”

“Maybe it will be f-fun?” Evie had suggested, and Annabelle had responded with a speaking glance, making her laugh.

The weather, of course, had decided to cooperate fully with the Bowmans’ plans, the sky open and blue, the air stirred by a soft breeze. Laden with baskets, the four girls walked along a sunken road, past wet meadows sprinkled with red sundew blossoms and vivid purple violets.

“Keep your eye out for a wishing well,” Lillian said briskly. “Then we’re supposed to cross the meadow on the other side of the lane and cut through the forest. There’s a dry meadow at the top of the hill. One of the servants told me that no one ever goes there.”

“Naturally it would be uphill,” Annabelle said without rancor. “Lillian, what does the well look like? Is it one of those little whitewashed structures with a pail and a pulley?”

“No, it’s a big muddy hole in the ground.”

“There it is,” Daisy exclaimed, hastening to the sloshing brown hole, which was being replenished from a bank beside it. “Come, all of you, we must each make a wish. I’ve even got pins that we can toss in.”

“How did you know to bring pins?” Lillian asked.

Daisy smiled with bright mischief. “Well, as I sat with Mama and all the dowagers while they were sewing yesterday afternoon, I made our Rounders ball.” She unearthed a leather ball from her basket and held it up proudly. “I sacrificed a new pair of kid gloves to make it—and it was no easy task, I tell you. Anyway, the old ladies were watching me stuff it with wool snippets, and when one of them could bear it no longer, she came out and asked me what in heaven’s name I was making. Of course I couldn’t tell them it was a Rounders ball. I’m sure Mama guessed, but she was too embarrassed to say a word. So I told the dowager that I was making a pincushion.”

All the girls snickered. “She must have thought it was the ugliest pincushion in existence,” Lillian remarked.

“Oh, there’s no doubt of that,” Daisy replied. “I think she felt quite sorry for me. She gave me some pins for it, and said something under her breath about poor bumbling American girls who have no practical skills whatsoever.” Using the edge of her nail, she pried the pins out of the leather ball and gave them over.

Setting down her own basket, Annabelle held a pin between her thumb and forefinger, and closed her eyes. Whenever the opportunity presented itself, she always made the same wish…to marry a peer. Strangely, however, a new thought entered her head, just as she cast the pin into the well.

I wish I could fall in love.

Surprised by the wilful, wayward notion, Annabelle wondered how it was that she could have wasted a wish on something that was obviously so ill-advised.

Opening her eyes, Annabelle saw that the other wallflowers were staring into the well with great solemnity. “I made the wrong wish,” she said fretfully. “Can I have another?”

“No,” Lillian said in a matter-of-fact tone. “Once you’ve thrown in your pin, it’s done.”

“But I didn’t mean to make that particular wish,” Annabelle protested. “Something just popped into my head, and it wasn’t at all what I had planned.”

“Don’t argue, Annabelle,” Evie advised. “You ddon’t want to annoy the well spirit.”

“The what?”

Evie smiled at her perplexed expression. “The resident spirit of the well. He’s the one to whom y-you make a petition. But if you annoy him, he may decide to demand a terrible price for granting your wish. Or he may drag you into the well with him, to live there forever as his c-consort.”

Annabelle stared into the brown water. She cupped her hands around the sides of her mouth to help direct her voice. “You don’t have to grant my rotten wish,” she told the unseen spirit loudly. “I take it back!”

“Don’t taunt him, Annabelle,” Daisy exclaimed. “And for heaven’s sake, step back from the edge of that well!”

“Are you superstitious?” Annabelle asked with a grin.

Daisy glowered at her. “There’s a reason for superstitions, you know. At some point in time, something bad happened to someone who was standing right next to a well, just as you are.” Closing her eyes, she concentrated intently, then tossed her own pin into the water. “There. I’ve made a wish for your benefit—so there’s no need for you to complain about having wasted one.”