Free The Rose of Winslow Street by Elizabeth Camden Page B

disastrous morning to her father and Mr. Auckland. “All of them speak English, but they seem very different from us.” Libby stared at a hummingbird flitting among the delphiniums as she tried to pin down what made Michael Dobrescu seem like he stormed out of another century. It wasn’t his appearance as much as his comportment. Or lack of it.
    â€œTheir clothing was clean, but strange,” she continued. “The men wore tailored coats, but they were made of leather.”
    â€œGypsies,” her father said scornfully, but Mr. Auckland was not so dismissive.
    â€œA good leather jacket can last for generations,” the old librarian said. “My grandfather fought in the Revolution, and I still have the leather coat that served him well for three years in the back country.”
    Mr. Dobrescu’s coat looked like it had lasted through three years of target practice, but Libby held her tongue, for as usual, Mr. Auckland was helping to put things in perspective and calm her father’s rattled nerves. The town’s librarian had been a friend to their family for as long as Libby could remember. It was Mr. Auckland who stood beside her during those painful adolescent years when her father demanded she try harder to learn to read. Convinced that Libby was not applying herself after the teachers and tutors had failed to make headway with her, Professor Sawyer required Libby to sit in the library every day after school and stare at a book for a solid two hours.
    Even after all these years, Libby loathed the sight and scent of that library, remembering the discomfort of the hard oak chair and the humiliation of sitting at the front table, where everyone in town could observe her pointless struggle. Plenty of unfortunate people lacked the proper schooling to learn how to read, but that was not Libby’s problem. With a college professor for a father and countless tutors, Libby seemed to be uniquely dense. Mr. Auckland was the most patient of all her tutors, but even his lessons failed to train her mind to work properly. Conceding defeat after a year of fruitless struggle, Mr. Auckland began looking the other way while Libby sketched or paged through the art books during that daily ritual of mortification at the public library.
    If her father ever knew that Mr. Auckland had permitted her that freedom, he never gave any indication of it. The old librarian had been a godsend during these tense few days since returning from the island. He sat at the garden table, casually eating from a dish of Regina’s pickled walnuts and serving as a calming presence while Libby recounted her impressions of the people who had stolen their house.
    â€œWhat about damage?” her father asked. “With all those children I suppose it is too much to hope the house is still in decent condition.”
    Libby shook her head. “The only problem I saw was to the drainboard in the kitchen. Somehow it has been cracked in half.” She had noticed the ruined drainboard just before leaving, but did not want to endanger the tenuous peace she had forged with Mr. Dobrescu by asking about it.
    â€œThat drainboard was a solid three inches thick! Those children surely did it. They were probably raised in a barn and have no idea how to comport themselves indoors.”
    â€œThat is where you may be wrong, Willard,” Mr. Auckland said. “The old Cossack came from a very fine family in Romania. It stands to reason that his relations would be as well.” Mr. Auckland had an encyclopedic memory and loved nothing more than solving a good mystery. The arrival of the Dobrescu clan had been a source of great fascination for him.
    â€œI remember the old Cossack used to wear a fancy uniform with epaulettes and a sash across his chest,” the librarian said. “It looked like the kind of thing a prince would wear for a grand ceremony, but he did not strike me as a particularly wealthy man. He used his entire