Private Altars

Arriving in Winsville with a firm grasp of the classics, four steamer trunks of books, a bust of Quintilian, and shoes and gloves for different times of day, Vienna Daniels creates a stir in a town uncomfortable with difference. "She's not crazy, she's just educated," Dr. Barstow pronounces to Vienna's husband, Willard, who is plainly disappointed with the patrician bride he managed to marry. When the marriage fails and Willard abandons her, Vienna and her two children have nothing more than the magic of their own imaginations to parlay an accidental and unenviable situation into one that…