The small breakfast room served as an all-purpose private dining room that the family used on a daily basis. The main dining room stood closed most of the time, opened only on those occasions when a social event occurred. Michaela and Lizzie arrived together, and Lizzie stood waiting while Michaela sat down in her customary chair, chattering away. She giggled as usual. The pleasant smell of sautéed onions and sage, as well as baked apple and cinnamon, wafted from the kitchen.

“You should have seen the expression on Jon's face when Rosie's horse started to run! He looked absolutely mortified!” Michaela breathed, excited.

“Well, I'm not surprised, since he was supposed to keep that horse under control so that Rosie learns to ride it safely,” Lizzie replied.

“What's all this about?” Justin asked as he strolled into the room after Lizzie and followed her toward her customary chair at the table. He pulled it out for her.

“Thank you, Mr. Knight,” said Lizzie, turning her head to him. She smiled pleasantly, and it enhanced her young and intelligent face. Her eyes suggested that she wanted to know how he would receive her smile. Even though she stood about Michaela’s height, she displayed a woman’s body, lithe for a woman of 37 years. Her dark, silky hair flowed smoothly behind her now, and her eyes probed and sparkled. Her charm and beauty often overshadowed her impeccable credentials.

“You're welcome, Ms. Kohn,” Justin replied kindly but with a slightly reserved tone as he helped move her chair closer to the table. “So, what's this about Mr. Stevens and my niece?”

Michaela's cousin often came over for horseback riding lessons. Jonathan Stevens acted as the estate's equestrian master and instructor, a service his family had provided to the Knight family for the last three generations.

“Rosie decided the time had come to ride by herself. She didn't tell Mr. Stevens, and the horse bolted,” Michaela told him with a delighted grin. “Mr. Stevens ran after them too late, trying to catch the horse. It took a few seconds before the horse recognized who called him and slowed to turn around. Mr. Stevens got really mad,” she giggled.

“Good Lord!” Justin replied. “I hope no harm came to her.”

“Oh no, she's fine,” Lizzie interjected. “She enjoyed herself immensely. Mr. Stevens, on the other hand, lost a few months off his lifespan, I'd say.”

Justin grimaced and shook his head.

“That girl is an accident waiting to happen,” he replied. “So, what do we have for dinner?”

On cue, the door to the kitchen opened and Mrs. Pomfrey, the family cook, came in holding a platter with a beautifully presented roast turkey on it. Her sturdy, stout frame plodded around the table, whereupon she placed the platter directly in front of her employer.

“Ah, there you are Mrs. Pomfrey. That looks delicious!” Justin declared.

“Good evening, sir,” Mrs. Pomfrey replied in a loud voice. Her expression didn't change, but a twinkle in her eyes suggested the compliment pleased her. He could never easily tell what Mrs. Pomfrey thought. “I've got gravy, potatoes, and stuffing coming too. There's also apricot salad on your left and some buttered beans on your right. We have apple pie for dessert.”

“Delicious as usual, Mrs. Pomfrey,” Justin announced.

“Oh Dad,” Michaela said, rolling her eyes, “You say that every night.”

“I say it,” he replied, “because it is true every night, my dear.” He hid behind an unconvincingly solemn face.

His daughter giggled again, watching Lizzie who grinned back.

Justin smiled despite himself. “So, where are Mr. Stevens and Rosie?”

“Rosie went home,” said Michaela. “I invited her to stay for dinner, but they're having spaghetti tonight, and you know how much she likes that stuff.”

Just then, the other door to the room opened, and Jonathan Stevens slowly walked into the room.

“Sorry to be late,” he said sheepishly.

“Not at all, we just arrived ourselves,” Justin replied. “Did you catch up to the horse finally?”

A mortified Jonathan acknowledged, “Oh, you heard about that.”

“Relax Mr. Stevens. I'm sure she caught you by surprise, and you did all you could. Really, I know what a handful my niece can be,” Justin said, and Jonathan smiled gratefully as he sat down at his customary place at the table. An experienced and weather-worn horseman, he checked his hands below the table to make sure he'd gotten all the stable grime off them.

The Knight household didn't resemble a typical family, particularly among the upper crust. The hired help never ate with such a family, but Justin changed that practice immediately after his wife's death. He couldn't bring himself to eat alone with his daughter. He desired adult companionship and instructed certain members of his staff to join them for dinner every night. It evolved into a private family tradition. The chosen staff members felt tense and uncertain about it at first, but after so many years it no longer bothered them.

Dinners at the Knight home usually proceeded in a pleasant, jovial manner, so it surprised the others that Justin ate so quietly this evening. Even Mrs. Pomfrey hesitated to interrupt his reverie when she came in to serve dessert. Only Lizzie ignored Justin's unusual reticence.

“So,” she said at one particularly quiet moment, hoping it might help break the tension a bit, “Michaela, tell your father what you studied today.”

“Oh, we read about early American history! We talked about how they financed the American Revolution. They had an awful time with inflation, and by the end of the war President Washington said, 'A wagon-load of money will scarcely purchase a wagon-load of provisions.'“

“They hadn't elected him president yet, Michaela,” Lizzie corrected her. “He was General Washington during the war.”

“Oh...yeah...I forgot. Anyway, I thought it was pretty strange. I mean, who actually carried money around in a wagon? Lizzie said it was a metaphor, that the value of the money fell so much that it would have taken a wagon load to buy anything worthwhile with it. Couldn't they have just written a check instead?”

“We still have a way to go with American financial history,” Lizzie told Justin apologetically, and he gave her an uncharacteristically disapproving stare. Lizzie's eyes widened, but she said nothing.

“What else did you learn today?” he asked with a mild smile, turning his attention back to his daughter.

“Well, Lizzie told me about how the Massachusetts Bay Colony first tried paper money in the 1690s, but it didn't work. The more money they printed, the less valuable it became. Not just Massachusetts; other colonies tried it too. The same thing happened in nearly all the colonies,” Michaela reported.

“What I don't understand,” she added, this time to Lizzie, “is how paper money finally worked. What did they end up doing differently? What makes it work today?”

Lizzie paused a moment to consider her answer. “We have a lot to cover yet, so be patient.”

Michaela thought about that for a moment, and then turned to her father. “May I be excused?”

After a quick examination of her plate to make sure she had eaten enough, he replied, “You may,” and she jumped up and ran from the room.

Lizzie noticed Justin’s troubled expression and studied him. “You don't approve.”

“It is not a question of approval. I just do not want her to follow in my footsteps,” he answered.

“You know how curious she is about you. She wants to understand everything she can about what you do. Everything we talk about she ends up relating to something about your career. When we study math, she wants to know what kinds of math get used in banking. When we work on geography, she wants to know where your bank's branches are located in the world. When we study history, she wants to know how it ties into the history of American banking. When we study government, she wants to know the role of government in banking. In case you hadn't noticed, she thinks the world of you,” said Lizzie.

Justin shook his head no again and said, “I still do not want this for her. I know she is curious. At her age I was the same. While other kids played sports or built electric train sets or thought about the opposite sex, I learned about letters of acceptance and mergers.”

“It's not just that,” Lizzie replied. “She's a rich kid living on an estate. She has very few friends, although I'm sure she'd like to have more. So she latches onto the adults in her life, unconsciously trying to fill in the missing spaces.”

“She has friends at the club,” Justin protested, annoyed. “Not to mention her dance classes and soccer club and horseback riding and…”

“But how many friends does she hang out with? None!” she interjected.

He ignored this. “Things have gotten complicated. The world is more complex, colder, more dangerous than when I was growing up. I am a lot more cynical than I used to be, and for good reason.” He paused and considered her significantly. “I do not want this for her,” he finished firmly.

“She's growing up,” Lizzie replied firmly. “She's not a little girl any more, and she's finding out more and more about how the world works faster than you want her to. You can try to discourage her from following you with a banking career, but I know you. You won't discourage her from using her mind, and that means she's going to figure it out one of these days. Even if I avoid teaching her anything about finance or banking or money ever again, she's still going to figure it out on her own.”

Justin sat quietly, steaming. He stared at his hands which he folded carefully on the table. He closed his eyes, slowly drew a breath, and released it just as slowly. He shook his head.

“No, I do not want this for her.”

He reached inside his dinner jacket and pulled out a small circular disk labeled “A History of the United States.”

“You left this in my laptop,” he told her.

“Yes,” she replied, “thank you.”

“Just keep it out of my office. I do not ever want to see it in there again,” he said curtly, glancing down at his dessert plate.

She stared at his eyes for a quick moment, then replied coolly, “Of course, sir.”

He stared instead at his pie á la mode with a frowning face, refusing to acknowledge he heard her. After a moment, he took another mouthful. They sat silently.