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woo-woo-woo-woo-woo s. In response, the object of his affection wagged her plump hind end and threw Sammy a lusty come-hither look.
    â€˜OK if we walk with you?’ the woman asked. ‘Or do you live . . .?’ She gestured to the brick house.
    â€˜I was afraid it was yours,’ I blurted out, ‘and that I’d been caught gaping. Or maybe it is yours?’
    â€˜Ours isn’t anything so grand,’ she said.
    â€˜Neither is ours,’ I said. ‘We’re at the wrong end of Appleton.’
    â€˜So are we. As of last week.’
    â€˜The humble end. Not that I’m complaining,’ I said. ‘Welcome to the neighborhood. Sammy and I are heading toward the river. Or maybe Brattle Street. If you—’
    â€˜Oh, I love Brattle Street,’ she exclaimed. ‘I’ve been walking Ulla there and pretending I’ve won a contest and get to pick any house I want. I’m Vanessa Jones, by the way.’
    â€˜Holly Winter. And this is Sammy.’
    By then we were moving at malamute speed with the dogs side by side in front of us. Everything was still damp from the rain, and the dogs were investigating the scent that clung to the moisture on the grass and shrubs we passed. Vanessa and I also explored shared interests. When I mentioned Bark , she complimented me on a short essay I’d published there and went on to say that she read my column in Dog’s Life magazine.
    â€˜I knew you lived in Cambridge,’ she said. ‘I was hoping to meet you. You don’t mind?’
    â€˜Why would I mind?’ I didn’t. On the contrary, I had the happy sense of encountering a kindred spirit. Before long, Vanessa and I had established that she lived only a half block from me. I’d known that the house had sold, but I’d been out of town on the day she and her family had moved in. She’d already met the McNamaras, who were her next-door neighbors. They had a charming puli named Persimmon. I knew them from Appleton Street and also from the Cambridge Dog Training Club. Vanessa had spent most of her life in Vermont, but her husband, Jim, had died of a heart attack during the winter, and she’d wanted to be near her son, Hatch, who was a resident in internal medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, as was Hatch’s fiancée, Fiona. Vanessa’s father, Tom, and her daughter, Avery, lived with her.
    â€˜We’ll have to see how that works out,’ she said. ‘My father’s been with me since my mother died, but in Vermont, he had his own little apartment. And then there’s Avery. Oh, my. I sometimes think that life would be easier if my relatives would all turn into dogs, preferably malamutes. Speaking of which, it’s as if these two have been friends for years.’
    After that, we talked malamutes and malamute rescue. Vanessa had always had dogs, but Ulla was her first malamute. ‘She’s sort of a rescue dog,’ Vanessa said. ‘I got her when her original owner died.’
    â€˜Do you know anything about her background?’ I asked.
    â€˜Everything! Ulla’s owner, Olympia, lived near us. Ulla was bred by a woman named Pippy Neff.’
    I limited myself to saying, ‘Pippy.’ Then I added, ‘I thought Ulla had a familiar look.’
    Vanessa laughed. ‘Aren’t you the soul of tact!’
    â€˜Rarely,’ I said.
    For the remainder of what turned into a long walk up and down the side streets off Brattle, we continued to talk about Alaskan malamutes and then drifted to our shared admiration for Jane Austen. In retrospect, I realize that we could hardly have chanced on a more jarring juxtaposition of topics: the most prominent feature of the malamute character, the wild streak, is singularly absent from the civilized society of Jane Austen’s novels. As we were returning home by retracing our route down Appleton Street, we ran into my cousin Leah and Kimi, who