Chapter Forty-Three
After a few moments, Jonas retook his seat and they both resumed drinking their tea.  They felt giddy with the prospect of becoming husband and wife and, God willing, a family soon after.  Then Jonas decided to tell her of his plan for them to move into the house.  He had used his walk from the house to Mariah’s cottage to detail a plan for honoring his contract with the town and compensating all those who had helped him. “Dearest Mariah, since we will marry and someday have a family, I thought it would be appropriate for us to move into Kindfellow the house.”  Mariah looked at him in surprise, but she did not protest.  Jonas continued. “In order to

Chapter Forty-Two
Mariah had slept for an hour but she did not feel rested.  Her slumber had been filled with dreams of her and Jonas living in the house.  At first they were happy dreams running like still photos in a slide show.  Jonas was preparing a slide show for the community and Mariah was helping him.  She dreamt of the photos but with Jonas and her in each of them, looking happy, contented, and deeply in love.  The same photos cycled again in her dreams, but now they also included Hannah and Jemima, and for the first time Mariah could plainly see the hatred they had for Jonas.  She could see that they meant him harm.  The realization of their animosity toward Jonas frightened he

Chapters Forty & Forty-One
The men finished well before their supper time and took their leave of Jonas with much winking and elbowing and queries as to whether he might need his own tiny house renovated, in the case that his bachelor days might soon be over. Jonas laughed with them, but said neither yea nor nay. He realized that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with Mariah, but he hadn’t formally asked her, and until he had asked and received a positive response, he would make no assumptions about his future with her. Once he was alone in the house, he began his routine of checking each room and securing the house so he too could go home. He wanted to talk with Mariah. He would ask

Chapter Thirty-Nine
The trip back to Hannah and Jemima’s home was uncomfortable for Mariah.  The girls were obvious in their pleasure at the thought of Jonas leaving town, and they freely and unselfconsciously talked about the time the three of them—Mariah and the girls—would have together.  Hannah and Jemima tried to make it seem as if they only wanted to keep Mariah company while Jonas was gone, but their glee suggested otherwise. “On Sundays, you should come home with us and we can bake pies and cakes and then take them to the poorest among us.  On Saturdays, we can all go to the library and study, like we used too,” said Hannah as she happily skipped ahead of Mariah.