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heap extra duties upon Mrs. Hennessy but there was simply no choice. She bore up cheerfully, washing clothes and cleaning the water-closet, but on the second afternoon that no applicants answered the ad Mrs. Hennessy unwittingly confirmed what Anine suspected.
    â€œMost of the Fifth Avenue maids have heard of the troubles in this house,” said the cook. “First the caretaker, then Mrs. O’Haney. They’re scared. If you pardon me, ma’am, the only women you’ll find to take the job are the coloreds.”
    At dinner that night Anine asked Julian how he was progressing at finding a valet. He’d run a second notice in the Times advertising the position, but he was interviewing candidates at his office and they did not come to the house. “I’ve had quite a lot of applicants,” he said. “Of course, few of them have much experience in serving a gentleman.”
    â€œAlmost no one has come about the ladies’ maid job. Mrs. Hennessey says it’s because they’re afraid of the house. I can’t say I blame them.”
    Julian grunted. “Naturally the women are a more superstitious lot. There should be a line around the block. Any domestic should be honored to work so close to Fifth Avenue.”
    The coloreds . Something about Mrs. Hennessey’s remark bothered Anine and she wasn’t sure what it was. In the morning Anine made a point to rise late, and she had not yet had her breakfast by the time Julian left the house for his office. As she hoped, his copy of the Times was still on the dining room table. While Mrs. Hennessey served breakfast Anine turned to the advertisements on the back pages. She quickly found the one Julian had placed:
    SITUATION OFFERED. LADIES’ MAID. Live-in. Must have good City references.
    Experience essential. Apply in person, 11 West 38th Street,
    Manhattan. WHITES ONLY.
    After breakfast Anine took a card and a fountain pen and wrote out the text of the advertisement, omitting Whites Only . Then she put on one of her many new outfits, a blue strolling dress with a jersey bodice—it had a matching hat—and asked Mrs. Hennessey to call her a carriage. “I’m going uptown to the newspaper office,” she announced. “You are not to say a word of this to Mr. Atherton when he returns home.”
    Mrs. Hennessey looked slightly taken aback, but she nodded. “Yes, ma’am.” She went outside to summon a carriage.
    Over breakfast the next morning Anine was slightly apprehensive that Julian would notice the advertisement had been revised, but if he saw it he said nothing of it. His only comment on the Times was about politics. “The Republicans have sealed their own doom by nominating Garfield. Hancock will make short work of him in November. I trust Father will be at sixes and sevens with a Democrat back in the executive mansion, but he has to learn that it’s not 1865 anymore. The war is behind us.”
    Barely an hour after Julian departed for his office on Broad Street the knocker on the front door sounded and Anine opened it onto a black woman, about forty, in a plain black dress and carrying a single rumpled carpetbag. Her eyes were very dark and her face had a careworn quality about it.
    â€œI’m here about the ladies’ maid job,” said the woman bluntly. “Is it still open?”

Chapter Five
    The Spöke
    Anine showed the woman into the parlor. The place was much different now than it had been on the terrible day they moved in. The velvet drapes were deep forest green, matching the carpet; the surface of the piano, a brand-new Chickering imported from Boston, shimmered like a mirror. The painting of Mrs. Quain had been replaced by a streetscape depicting St. James’s Park. On her honeymoon Anine saw the picture hanging in a gallery in London and bought it on the spot. Only the bookshelves were bare; Anine hadn’t yet gotten around to ordering