Whisper on the Wind by Maureen Lang

small, and the dress she wore—a disaster.
    It was a lovely gown of silk, damask, and mousseline de soie , in a dark shade of forest green, perhaps the darkest gown she, too, could find. But her feet were in plain view, her arms barely covered by sleeves that reached a rather odd length somewhere between her wrist and elbow. The bodice was askew, and when she turned around to display the full extent of the miserable fit, it became clear that those buttons would never close while Isa’s body was inside.
    “Every one I’ve tried is worse than this,” she exclaimed. “How can that be? It’s been just two years! I feel like Alice through the looking glass. Or Gulliver in Lilliput.”
    Genny cocked her head with a rueful smile. “Two years of significant growth, evidently.” She stepped closer, lifting the material to see if there was any give in the bodice area. “Clara,” she said over her shoulder, “would you get that purple day dress, the one I was going to try next?”
    “Not my mother’s—and purple! I don’t think I should wear any color with Belgium overrun.”
    “It will be better than this.” Genny nodded encouragingly to Clara, who quickly disappeared to follow orders. “And it’s a dark purple, almost black.”
    Isa flopped to the divan near her wardrobe and reached out to stroke one of the gowns still hanging within. “I was so happy to see them all.” She expelled a long breath. “Oh, well, I couldn’t have worn the majority anyway, they’re so festive.” Then she suddenly laughed.
    “All right, let me in on the secret.”
    “Only that I shouldn’t have been surprised Edward always thought of me as a child. I guess while I was gone, my body caught up with the rest of me.” She looked at Genny with raised brows. “I wonder what it will take to make him see that.”
    Genny reached down and removed a strand of light golden hair that had strayed to Isa’s face. “So, you still hold him in a special light?”
    “Of course! Why shouldn’t I?”
    “I thought perhaps you might have outgrown your infatuation with him.”
    “If it were an infatuation, maybe I would have. Do you ever outgrow love?”
    “Not if it’s nourished.”
    “And I can’t help but nourish it.”
    “I meant from both sides, my darling. From your heart—and his.”
    Isa looked away. “He still sees me as too young.” She held up the edge of her dress and smiled. “But now even my clothes say I’m grown up, and I intend to make him notice.”
    Genny couldn’t recall the first time she’d seen the way Isa felt about Edward. Her feelings seemed to have erupted the moment she’d met him. With him several years older, Genny’s automatic response had always been caution.
    Now, though . . .
    Genny had once wondered if Edward would wait to marry until Isa caught up, and if he did, she always knew she would welcome Isa as a daughter-in-law as easily as she’d welcomed her as a surrogate member of the family.
    Maybe Isa’s dreams would come true after all. Genny knew one thing: if that ever happened, Edward would have little choice but to work out his faith; Isa would have nothing less.
    Still, Genny wasn’t the kind to interfere, even if she might be rooting for Isa in a way she never seriously had before.
    Clara returned with the purple gown, a style reminiscent of the Gibson girl with a lacy bustline and swirling skirt. Isa’s once-spindly body now filled the lines of her mother’s gown.
    Surely Edward would notice that without either Genny or Isa herself saying a word.

9
    Excellence,
    . . . As for annihilating La Libre Belgique , don’t hope for it; it is impossible. It will ever be beyond your grasp because it is nowhere. It is a will-o’-the-wisp, rising from the graves of those whom your compatriots massacred at Louvain, at Tamines, at Dinant; and it haunts you. It is a will-o’-the-wisp, rising from the graves of the German soldiers who fell at Liege, at Waelhem, and on the Yser, who now see