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toward Madison Avenue. “I think there have only been about three times in forty years that I’ve come to this Ball and the weather hasn’t been filthy. No wonder they stop hunting in New York State early. Genesee Valley stops when the river freezes, which has to be now.”
    Sister was telling Tootie about a hunt founded in 1876 by hard-riding upstate New Yorkers, among them the Wadsworth family, who still led them.
    “I’d love to go up there and hunt,” said Tootie. “I can take a train up to Rochester and then rent a car to drive down to the Genesee Valley.” Turning her head from the wind, the snow on her creamy café au lait skin added to her considerable beauty.
    “Next year. I’ll come with you. Watching Marion Thorne hunt hounds is always a treat. Then again she has good whippers-in. You know, that’s the hardest position to fill.”
    “That’s what you always told us.” Tootie listened closely to everything the older woman had ever told her, as the gorgeous young woman loved hounds, horses, foxes, and Sister, herself.
    Another gust of wet snow smacked them right in the face.
    “Well, who needs skin abrasion up here?” said Sister. “Just go outside. You’ll get a few layers peeled right off.”
    Tootie wrinkled her nose. “Sounds awful.”
    “Ah!” Sister stepped faster as the shop came into sight.
    “Ladies.” The owner rose from behind the store’s counter when the two swept into the shop. “Welcome.”
    “We’re glad to be here.” Sister laughed, brushing off her snow-covered coat.
    Adolfo Galdos, balding, pudgy, and sixtyish, smiled broadly. “One must submit to the weather. That’s what my dear papa always said. He never could fathom how people endured this.”
    “Cuban?” Sister inquired.
    “How did you know?”
    “I’ve never met a proprietor of a tobacco shop from Barcelona.” She smiled, but she had recognized the lilt in his voice.
    “There you have it.” He beamed anew. “For us, tobacco is gold, is art. Someday, and I hope I live to see it, we will return and once again, the finest cigar tobacco in the world will be available to you.”
    Tootie quietly studied the shop. Cigarette cases with sapphire clasps, lighters of perfect weight and simple design, sparkled alongside impossibly long cigarette holders.
    Adolfo noticed the object of Tootie’s scrutiny. “A Dunhill. 1938. That lighter will work as good as the day it was made.”
    Now also studying the display case herself, Sister murmured, “Beautiful. Oh, look at that.”
    He reached into the case, retrieving a heavy silver cigarette case with handwritten names incised. “This was given to a Britishofficer by his surviving men.” He flipped it open where it was gold inside, the officer’s name—Cpt. Mitchell Markham—was inscribed therein.
    Sister’s hand flew to her heart. “What a tribute. My father fought in World War One. He never spoke of it, but I expect it affected him all his life and may be one of the reasons he married so late.”
    “Do we not ask impossible things of people?” Adolfo’s beautiful green eyes met hers. “We left Cuba in 1959. My own father, who owned a tobacco plantation, saw there was no hope and left. Those who grew sugar also fled. Others, thinking the revolutionaries would not come for them, lost everything. Everything.”
    “This is called progress.” Sister grimaced. “No one learns. It didn’t work for the French in 1791 and it will never work, period.”
    Adolfo spoke to Tootie, delighted by her youth and femininity. “I hope, Señorita, that you will never encounter such foolishness.”
    Shyly, Tootie responded, “I hope so, too.”
    “Ladies, allow me to show you the humidor. The aroma alone is intoxicating.” He stepped out from behind the counter, twirled one hand like a drum major, walked to the rear of the store, and opened a glass door—the fragrance of various cigars, cigarettes, long-cut pipe tobacco, filled the room. “After you.”
    The two entered