"What a delicious baby!" Juliet said to Joy Meredith--no, Penhallow-- as she touched the little rose-petal face of her baby daughter. "Oh, Joy! You're a mother--that's strange--and wonderful--and true! Haven't you always been a mother to this little girl? Since the dawn of time? Tell me, what are you going to call her? Have you decided yet?

Juliet smiled and cooed down at the little face. The baby's eyes opened once--she blinked--she was not impressed. Juliet laughed--yes, laughed. She had been back at New Moon for almost a fortnight, and though it hadn't been easy at first it was becoming easier. How horrible the first few days had been, when she'd broken the news about her and Allan. Aunt Ilse had cried and Father had railed and Uncle Perry had called Allan up on the long distance and shouted. Mother had been very quiet and supportive but her smile was sad. As she explained, they weren't mad, just upset--both families had always expected that Allan and Juliet would end up together.

The worst part of it was that because Juliet had promised not to tell anyone about Allan's dilemma she had had to make it seem like it was a mutual split--as if she, Juliet, thought it was a good idea that she and Allan not be married! When every part of her being wanted to have that to hope for. When she still loved him so much!

Juliet shook her head to clear it, jiggled the baby and placed her back in her mother's arms. "Joy?" she said, putting her sun-browned hand on her friend's knee. "Why the long face? What have you decided to name the baby?"

"Oh, Juliet, it's horrible!" Joy burst out, tears suddenly running down her cheeks.

"How could anything be horrible? Look at your baby girl!"

"This is," Joy muttered through her sobs.

Juliet's heart skipped a beat. "Joy, there isn't anything--wrong--with the baby, is there? No one said anything to me"

"There's nothing wrong," Joy smiled through her tears. "Not with the baby at least. Not yet. She's perfect--I know I'm overreacting--but Juliet, they want--me and Jake--to name her--to name her--"

"Name her what?"

"After Grandfather," Joy wailed piteously. "Gilbertine! I--loved--Grandfather Blythe so--but--but--Gilbertine!"

"Gilbertine?" Juliet's jaw dropped.

"Gil-ber-tine! Oh, Juliet and it gets worse."

"How could that possibly get worse?" Juliet asked, in real horror. Worse than Gilbertine? Gilbertine Penhallow! Juliet looked at the sleeping baby sadly. How dreadful!

"Jake's family heard that we--might--we might--name the baby after Grandfather and they got all huffy. Jake's own mother died when he was young--they want us to name our little girl after her--and Juliet, her name was Gabrielle Alexandrina! Jake's sister already has a little Gabrielle, so they want us to call our baby--"

"Alexandrina?"

"Yes," Joy sobbed. "Oh, isn't it terrible?"

Juliet leaned over to kiss the baby's little forehead, wrinkled in sleep as if she were worrying over her own fate. "Don't worry, little baby," she whispered. "You are not going to be an Alexandrina, nor aGilbertine, not if your honorary Aunt has anything to say about it." To Joy she said, "What do you want to name the baby?"

Joy was taken aback. No one had asked her that yet. "Well," she said bashfully. "Oh, Juliet, I do so want to name her Rose. Doesn't she look like a little red rose with her crimson hair and her little rosebud mouth? Rose Penhallow--middle name 'Anne' after Grandmother. Grandmother doesn't like her name--but I think it's so beautiful. What do you think?"

"Rose Anne Penhallow," Juliet said, tasting the words. "Why, Joy, that's your baby's name! Look how she's smiling in her sleep. She likes it! Hello, little Roseoh you weren't those other names at all. Here, Joy, take her. Now, don't get up--I'll go down and tell everyone that you've chosen your baby's name."

"Oh, Juliet, don't"

"Gilbertine!" Juliet said warningly, and the baby began to cry. "Alexandrina?"

"Go," Joy said.

Little Rose Anne Penhallow was christened by Joy's father, the Reverend Meredith one sunny Sunday afternoon in June, and Juliet Kent stood up as her godmother. When the reverend asked for the baby's name, her voice rang out strong and true. Everyone was so happy and joyful about the baby that both sides of the family forgot to be offended about the name. Besides--the little girl soon grew so chubby that her father called her Rolly Poly--changed to Polly, then shortened to Poll--and she went by that name until she was in her teens. So it really didn't matter after all if she had been a Gilbertine or not. But as Kipling would say, the happenings of Poll Penhallow are , indeed, another story.

The worst part of the day for Juliet was that Jake had invited his old friend from grade school to be the baby's godfather. It was very hard for Juliet to have Allan standing next to her the whole time. Her arms cradled little Rose and she did not turn her head to look at him at all. Once or twice one reached for the other's hand quite by accident--their fingers brushed--and they jumped apart as if an electric shock had gone through them. It was agonizing.

Allan looked terrible--as if he hadn't slept for weeks. His skin under his freckles was so pale it was almost gray, and he'd lost weight--he was too skinny and gaunt. Juliet longed to go to him and throw her arms around him, pulling him close, but dared not. The whole time he offered her only one small, thin smile, and left without saying goodbye.

That night Juliet peered through the trees in Lofty John's bush and saw one single light radiating through the trees--it was coming from Allan's room. It stayed on long into the night--hours after all the other lights in the house had gone off. Juliet saw his shadow moving up and down as he paced. Only after Allan's own room went dark, did Juliet turn her own lamp down and sleep. Deep into the night, the two that had once been lovers kept a strange and distant tryst.

* * *

Then, overnight, the pain seemed to go away.

Juliet woke up one morning with a light heart. It was a beautiful summer day on the most beautiful home on the most beautiful Island in the world! She was wearing her pink muslin--and, as everyone knows, it's impossible to feel upset when you are wearing pink.

So Allan didn't love her. Yes, there was a twinge somewhere, deep down. So he didn't want to marry her? Fine. Juliet was so happy today that she didn't care--she couldn't care! JohnLester was working on his aunt and uncle's farm in Carlisle, and dropped by often. So he wasn't Allan! She didn't care! He was nice enough in his own right and Juliet found herself liking him more and more each time she saw him.

"I feel as if I'd been having a horrible nightmare these past months," she breathed. "And I've just woken up. Some especially terrifying parts of the dream linger still--but they'll soon go away."

Mother and Father were away in town, and Juliet cleaned the whole house for them, from top to bottom. She didn't have to, and most of the house didn't need it, but it did her soul good to make dirty things clean again, to sweep and scrub and polish and wash.

She started in the basement in the morning and then worked her way up, ending in the New Moon garrett. How dusty it was up here! How ghostly with these big boxes stacked everywhere! Juliet peeked inside of one marked with her own name and pulled out a pair of tiny shoes. How strange it was to think she had ever been small enough to fit in them! She opened another that was filled with old sketchbooks of Father's, leafed through them for a while, then replaced them.

The next box was filled to bursting with old notebooks and pieces of paper, marked simply, "Emily." Juliet unfolded one of the pieces of paper--it looked like an old letter-bill--and read the childish scrawl on the back. Written by Mother, when she was small--they were all written by Mother. She opened the first of the notebooks and read, in the same hand,

New moon,

Blair water,

P. E. island.

October 8th.

I am going to write a diary, that it may be published when I die.

"Wonderful," Juliet breathed, and for the rest of the afternoon, read. She read about Mother coming to New Moon after the death of her father, she read about Aunt Elizabeth and Aunt Laura and Cousin Jimmy and Aunt Ruth. She read about Mother meeting Aunt Ilse for the first time, and the strange occurrence when Mother had been sick, when they found Ilse's mother in the old well. By the time the sun was going down she had finished the first of the diaries and 'Jimmy-books'--all of them up to the time that Mother went away to Shrewsbury High School. She sat for a while in the twilight and thought. Then Juliet said, contemplatively,

"I wonder--if I could write--a book about Mother?"