She imagined herself a missionary in some heathen land like Africa or France, able to understand the natives long before she learned their language. She imagined herself a diplomat for the Protectorate, using her talent to discern when foreign ambassadors or heads of state were lying and when they were sincere.

And then, in place of imagination, she saw a boy of twelve or so, dark of skin with tight-curled hair, shoot up out of the river not three rods off, water falling off him, shining in the sunlight, his mouth open and laughing, and in midair he sees her, and she can see his face change and in that instance she knows what he feels: embarrassment to be seen buck naked by a woman, the fading remnants of his boisterous fun, and, just dawning under the surface where his own mind couldn't know it yet, love.

Well I never had that effect before, thought Purity. It was flattering. Not that the love of a twelve-year-old boy was ever going to affect her life, but it was sweet to know that at the cusp of manhood this lad could catch a glimpse of her and see, not the orphan bluestocking that so disgusted or terrified the young men of Cambridge, but a woman. Indeed, what he must have seen and loved was not a woman, but Woman, for Purity had read enough Plato to know that while wicked men lusted after particular women, a man of lofty aspirations loved the glimpse of Woman that he saw in good women, and by loving the ideal in her helped bring her to closer consonance, like lifting the flat shadow off the road and rejoining it to the whole being who cast it.

What in the world am I thinking about. This child is no doubt every bit as peculiar as I am, him being Black in a land of Whites, as I am an orphan in a land of families and am thought to be the child of witches to boot.

All these thoughts passed through her mind like a long crackle of lightning, and the boy splashed back down into the water, and then near him another person rose, a grown man, heavily muscled in the shoulders and back and arms, and considerably taller than the boy, so that although he didn't jump, when he stood his bare white buttocks showed almost completely above the water, and when he saw where the Black boy was looking, his mouth agape with love, he turned and…

Purity looked away in time. There was no reason to allow the possibility of impure thoughts into her mind. She might or might not be one of the elect, but there was no need to drag herself closer to the pit, thus requiring a greater atonement by Christ to draw her out.

“So much for a spot where nobody comes!” the man cried out, laughing. She heard a great splashing, which had to be the two of them coming out of the water. “Just a minute and we'll be dressed so you can go on with your walk, ma'am.”

“Never mind,” she said. “I can go another way.”

But at the moment she took her first step to return along the riverbank, a coarse-looking man with heavy muscles and a menacing cast to his face stepped in front of her. She couldn't help gasping and stepping back–

Only to find that she was stepping on a man's boot.

“Ouch,” he said mildly.

She whirled around. There were two men, actually, one of them a dapper but smallish man who looked at her with a candor that she found disturbing. But the man she had stepped on was a tall, dignified-looking man who dressed like a professional man. Not in the jet-black costume of a minister, but not in the earthy “sad” colors of the common folk of New England. No, he dressed like nothing so much as…

“An Englishman,” she said. “A barrister.”

“I confess it, but marvel that you guessed it.”

“English visitors come to Cambridge often, sir,” she said. “Some are barristers. They seem to have a way of dressing to show that their clothing cost considerable money without ever quite violating the sumptuary laws.” She turned around to face the menacing man, unsure whether this Englishman was a match for him.

But then she realized that she had been momentarily deceived by appearances. There was no menace in the rough fellow, no more than in the Englishman. And the other one, the dapper little fellow who was still inspecting her with his eyes, posed no danger, either. It was as if he knew only one way to think of women, and therefore shelved his attitude toward Purity under the heading “objects of lust,” but it was a volume that would gather dust before he cared enough to take it down and try to read it.

“We must have frightened you,” said the Englishman. “Our friends were determined to bathe, and we were determined to lie on the riverbank and nap, and so you didn't see any of us until you were right among us, and I apologize that you saw two of our company in such a state of deshabille.”

“And what, pray, is a state of Jezebel?”

The dapper little fellow laughed aloud, then stopped abruptly and turned away. Why? He was afraid. Of what?

“Pardon my French,” said the Englishman. “In London we are not so pure as the gentlefolk of New England. When Napoleon took over France and proceeded to annex the bulk of Europe, there were few places for the displaced aristocracy and royalty to go. London is crawling with French visitors, and suddenly French words are chic. Oops, there I go again.”

“You still have not told me what the French word meant. 'Cheek,' however, I understand– it is a characteristic that your whole company here seems to have.”

The barrister chuckled. “I would say that it's yourself that takes a cheeky tone with strangers, if it were not such an improper thing to say to a young lady to whom I have not been introduced. I pray you, tell me the name of your father and where he lives so I can inquire after your health.”

“My father is dead,” she said, and then added, despite her own sense of panic as she did so, “He was hanged as a witch in Netticut.”

They fell silent, all of them, and it made her uneasy, for they had nothing like the reaction she expected. Not revulsion at her confession of such indecent family connections; rather they all simply closed off and looked another way.

“Well, I'm sorry to remind you of such a tragic event,” said the Englishman.

“Please don't be. I never knew him. I only just realized what his fate must have been. You don't imagine that anyone at the orphanage would tell me such a thing outright!”

“But you are a lady, aren't you?” asked the Englishman. “There's nothing of the schoolgirl about you.”

“Being an orphan does not stop when you come of age,” said Purity. “But I will serve myself as father and mother, and give you my consent to introduce yourself to me.”

The Englishman bowed deeply. “My name is Verily Cooper,” he said. “And my company at the moment consists of Mike Fink, who has been in the waterborne transportation business but is on a leave of absence, and my dear friend John-James Audubon, who is mute.”

“No he's not,” said Purity. For she saw in both Cooper and Audubon himself that the statement was a lie. “You really mustn't lie to strangers. It starts things off in such an unfortunate way.”

“I assure you, madam,” said Cooper, “that in New England, he is and shall remain completely mute.”

And with that slight change, she could see in both of them that the statement was now true. “So you choose to be mute here in New England. Let me puzzle this out. You dare not open your mouth; therefore your very speech must put you in a bad light. No, in outright danger, for I think none of you cares much about public opinion. And what could endanger a man, just by speaking? The accent of a forbidden nation. A papist nation, I daresay. And the name being Audubon, and your manners toward a woman being tinged with unspeakable presumptions, I would guess that you are French.”

Audubon turned red under his suntan and faced away from her. “I do not know how you know this, but you also must be seeing that I did not act improper to you.”