She moved through the park, the turn of her outdated hat suggesting an uneasy vigilance. How would Charlotte assess her demeanor, I wondered? Anxious, my practiced eye told me, furtive, too. Curious, I followed her.

From the park, she crossed Fifth Avenue and entered the Ladies Mile just as I would. I did not find her route unusual for the mile reached south from Twenty-Third Street to Sixteenth Street, wrapping around between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It catered to the carriage trade from uptown reaches, which brought crowds of women in search of the trappings that would spell their domestic accomplishments. As we neared Stern's Dry Goods, she paused and engaged in the newish habit of window shopping. I drew near enough to see the detail in the lace — then stopped short, startled.

I had seen it before.

I scoured my memories, seeking the whens and wheres of recognition, but found little. Silently, I cursed in frustration. Why? Why had I once been such a vacuous creature, given over to propriety and niceties? Why indeed, for I had known nothing else then. One was not counseled to be smart and daring and observant. One was told to be a belle of discretion, to be ornamental and mannered and not to hold any ideas in one's head. Heaven forbid that an idea might render me ugly to that season's bachelors.

Yes, that was it! I had seen the lace during my season of coming out. But which of my pretty peers had worn it? That, I could not remember, and the woman I followed did not once look back. I hastened my step as much as decorum allowed, wanting to draw as near to this curiosity as possible, but not so much that I would bring any attention to myself.

It was not easy. My quarry repeatedly ducked between buildings and hid in the shadows. Odd at first, but each time she did, I found myself exchanging pleasantries with the noted coterie of my Society mother.

So she was avoiding contact with those of the social station to which we had been born. Still, I did not glimpse enough of her face to identify her, bundled up as she was. But that lace was ever before me and it, I memorized. Its focal point — a lily shaped from fine linen thread — rested perfectly between her shoulder blades, pointing downward. Bursts of stylized flowers adorned the rest of the capelet, fronds and flowers alike, and I could no more identify them than to say “this reminds me of a tulip and that, an amaranth leaf.” But its motifs were so perfectly balanced in presentation and repetition that its beauty had to be born of an expert lace maker’s hands.

In my effort to focus on the lace, I failed to notice a crush of holiday shoppers close in on me and, caught there, I watched the young woman melt away into the crowd beyond me. My faculties exhausted by my effort, I gave up the chase and headed home, desperate to divulge my sighting to Charlotte before its salient points faded.

When I did, standing in Charlotte's laboratory and voicing it to her in hurried breathlessness, she would tell me exactly where and when I had seen that piece of lace.