Catherine Barton had come to London round the turn of the century. She’d have been about twenty. Her father—Isaac’s brother-in-law—had died a few years earlier, and Isaac had shouldered the load of keeping the poor survivors fed, clothed, and housed. After a short time staying in the city with Isaac, she’d come down with smallpox and fled to the countryside to recover or die. It was during that time that she’d sent a letter to Daniel in Boston, a letter no less sweet and charming for being cleverly written.