"I'll be distressed if I have to leave you," Miss Barton said. "But I suppose it would be good for you to return to school, to be among young people again."

We were in the study, about to begin a class in poetry. There had been no mention of Grandmother at breakfast. The others had seemed apprehensive at first, as though they were expecting the old woman to appear and threaten their happiness as she had the previous morning. But I had reassured them. I spoke of future pleasures, and they soon begin to smile, becoming absorbed in selfish fantasies.

And now, when we were supposed to be talking about poetry, Miss Barton was still absorbed in her fantasy.

"Do you miss being with people your own age?", she asked.

She wanted me to tell her that I found her vastly more interesting that I had ever found anyone of my own age. I wouldn't give her that kind of satisfaction, though.

"I miss some of them," I said. "I often think of Miranda."

"Miranda? I don't remember you mentioning her before."

"We were very close for a time. But she became a woman before I did, and I didn't always understand some of the things she wanted me to do."

Miss Barton raised her eyebrows slightly. "What sort of things?"

"Personal things. She once asked me to give her a lock of my hair."

"Surely there's nothing wrong with that," Miss Barton said. Her eyebrows had lowered and she seemed embarrassed.

"Not in itself, I suppose. But there was definitely something wrong with what she wanted to do with the hair."

Miss Barton didn't ask me what that might have been. I'm not sure what I would have told her if she asked. She stared at me, probably wondering whether I had seen her leave my room the previous night.

When I thought she had wondered long enough, I said, "Shall we read some poetry?"

I enjoyed the system we had for studying poems. Miss Barton would read a poem aloud, and then we would discuss what she had read. She chose poems from all periods, and did not tell me who the author was until after we had discussed the poem. I thought it remarkable how similar poems were to one another even when they had been written centuries apart. Perhaps it was because the behavior of the insane varies little from century to century.

"Are most poets mad?" I asked.

Miss Barton looked pleased. I think I was the first person she had tutored who liked poetry. "It's possible," she answered. "At least most of them have been unusual. That's why we value them."

"Do you think I'm an unusual person?"

Miss Barton looked at me seriously. "Yes," she said. "But not as unusual as you might think. Everyone is strange in some way."

"Then you are strange too."

"Yes." She touched my hand. "But not in a way that harms anyone. It's important that you not harm anyone, Clare."

Like most powerless persons Miss Barton made a virtue of her weakness. I took her hand and said, "I wouldn't try to harm anyone who loved me."