Hot winds swept across a west Texas hillside, whirling in circles, stirring up choking clouds of dust that filled the air and drifted upward. The sudden dust devil left behind two people, one a white-robed man, the other a woman garbed in a farthingale and ruff. Both were coughing violently.

"Does Gabriel have to be so melodramatic about this?" the woman gasped out. Her companion shrugged between spasms of coughing.

"He does lean to the theatrical side, I suppose," he finally managed.

"God's toenails, Horatio!" the stout woman snapped as her coughing ceased. "Why didn't you tell me we were going to the moon?" She swept out one arm in a dramatic motion that indicated the barren ground studded with sagebrush and small cactus. "I thought you said I had to--"

"This is America--the New World, Tabitha, just as I told you," Horatio replied in a voice of weary patience. "We're in Texas. And I do wish you would not use such epithets."

"Eh? Oh. You mean 'God's toenails.' Sorry. I keep forgetting myself?" Tabitha energetically brushed dust from her clothes. A frown knit her plucked brows. "I still don't understand why I must be forced to come to this godforsaken spot--oh, not that, either?--anyway, I've only just got to the Hereafter, and you're already plaguing me with this 'improve thyself' nonsense."

"Remember the proper vernacular, Tabitha," Horatio warned. "Your speech is important, and it could be embarrassing if you forget. Besides, you've been in the Hereafter for over three hundred years--plenty of time to improve and learn the art of suitable conversation."

Her sniff contained a wealth of disdain. "It certainly doesn't feel like that long! Time does fly, I suppose--Horatio, are you absolutely certain people really live in this desolate part of the world?"

"Positive. Just look over that ridge and you will see her ranch."

"Ah, yes," Tabitha murmured, squinting against the sun as she peered at the small ranch below. "Now, you say this girl is a descendant of mine?"

"Exactly so. And she is about to inherit the Lynnfield brooch."

Tabitha's jaw dropped, and she whirled to stare at Horatio. Her skirts spun against the dirt, and her chin jutted up out of the cambric ruff she wore. "My brooch?"

"Not yours--the Lynnfield family brooch, remember?"

"But this girl is--what did you call her?--an American? How can someone who isn't English inherit my brooch?" she demanded.

"Her grandmother was Mrs. Harriet Cabot, née Lynnfield. She married a Colonial in 1822, and--"

"How vulgar!" Tabitha muttered.

Horatio sighed.

"Sorry. Go on," she said, attempting to smile.

"And came to America," he finished. "The Cabots moved west in 1848 when Harriet was fifty-two and her daughter Charlotte was twenty. Charlotte married in 1852, and young Susan was born in 1853. She is now twenty-three and the only living Lynnfield female."

"Good God!" Tabitha exclaimed. "All of them died out?"

"All the females, it seems," Horatio replied dryly. "I believe that Lord Neville was the last to die, and he passed the brooch on down the bloodline the best he could."

"Blithering idiot," Tabitha murmured with fire in her eye. "I cannot countenance the fact that my brooch has fallen into the hands of commoners!"

"Tabitha, Tabitha, all men are equal in the eyes--"

"I know, I know," she interrupted hastily. "But not down here. That's not the way it works, and no one knows that better than I do. The Lynnfield brooch--in America!" She took a step forward, her heavy skirts swinging over dust and clumps of sage. "What will they do next," she blurted, "bring over London Bridge?"

"One never knows, Tabitha. At any rate, your purpose for being sent here is to help out your young descendant. She is about to be in serious trouble." With a wave of one hand he indicated a cloud of dust rolling slowly along the road. It was a small buggy, and it bowled over the ruts and rolled to a halt in front of the ranch.

"The brooch arrives," Horatio said softly, and Tabitha couldn't help an eager step forward.

"My brooch?"

"Tabitha, it isn't your brooch! It is a family heirloom that now belongs to Miss Whitten."

"I thought her name was Cabot. And besides, I have more of a right to it than anyone, don't I? I died with the damned thing pinned to my chest, after all."

"Tabitha!"

"Well, I did! Fell right down the stairs and broke my neck quick as a flash. Didn't hurt the brooch, though." She sniffed. "The least they could have done was bury me in it."

"It is a Lynnfield family tradition to pass it down to the next female in line, I believe," Horatio chided and Tabitha glared at him;

"Don't I know that? How do you think I got it?' Her plump jowls quivered slightly. "Dreadful thing, really. I cannot forget how pale and bloodless Anna looked lying there with poison still on her lips--she was just before me, you know. I was next to inherit. Ah, well, she took her own life over a man, it was quite dreadful! There must be something to that curse business, though it does smack of..."

Taking Tabitha by the elbow, Horatio tactfully switched the subject. "Shall we begin helping her instead of debating ancient history? Her ranch is about to be foreclosed on because of a long drought that has dried up all the grass for the cattle, and--"

"Ancient history? It wasn't that long ago!"

"...and it will not help her keep her father's ranch if we mull over her wretched circumstances instead of taking action. That is your department, dear Tabitha, and you must begin at once."

Muttering under her breath, Tabitha lifted her full skirts from the dust and set off down the slope beside Horatio. This promised to be a most uncomfortable trial for her,

There were times, Tabitha thought gloomily, when she wasn't certain exactly where in the Hereafter she had landed. The first hundred years or so had been quite pleasant, but now all this foolery about building character and other nonsense was beginning to make her think she had been duped. Perhaps this wasn't Paradise after all.

Well, there was nothing to do now but see how she could help this silly chit who had managed to inherit nothing but dust and sky. And her brooch!

"A drought?" Tabitha asked. "Perhaps a good rain will fix it all and I can get back before Beethoven's concert begins." She lifted her arms with a dramatic flourish.