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"He insists hefor you after Catherine’s private lesson, but your class ran late so he left He toldyou toh of the day shuddered out of her lungs Okay No big deal For so at the bit for a few minutes of Miranda’s time Clearly he wouldn’t take no for an answer, so she’d just suck it up and have a brief conversation with hi ot to take off now You’ll lock up after your evening lesson?"

"Of course"

"Then I’ll see you to for the ehter When she poked her head in, she saw Sophie sprawled on a pile of bluewith the new doll they’d picked out a couple of days ago Miranda had taken the kids to theSophie’s beloved Belinda; fortunately, Belinda’s successor, Eo, Soph," she called out "We have to pick up your brother"

Sophie hopped off theEmily under her ars with a hefty whoohter "What’s this about?"

"Do you still love ly at her

"Why on earth would you ask me that, sweetie? Of course I still love you!"

Relief flooded her daughter’s face "Promise?"

"I promise, Soph, I still love you I will always love you Always and always and always"

"Pinky promise?"

Miranda promptly squatted down to the floor and stuck out her pinkie After a second, Sophie offered a pinkie in return and they sealed the deal

"Now," Miranda said, incredibly disturbed by this entire exchange, "can you tell ht I didn’t love you anynored me in class t’day when I tried to show you my plié" Sophie pouted "And yesterday you only read one story after dinner and you usually read two and Jase said maybe you were tired ’cause our house is underwater and then he said maybe ould hafta live with Sef forever but I said ouldn’t ’cause Sef is mean ’cept sometimes he’s notnice when he sees that we see he’s being nice"