Excerpt from A Well-Behaved Woman by Therese Anne Fowler, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"The Germans are nearly as bad," said Miss Berg.

Armide said, "We did have a terrible German governess…"

"Did? Who tends your sisters now?" asked Miss Roosevelt.

"Armide does," Alva said. "She's very capable, and with our mother gone, the girls prefer her."

"Four motherless, unmarried girls." Miss Roosevelt shook her head. "So unfortunate."

"But it's the Jews who are the worst," Miss Berg continued. "Not with drink; I think liquor is against their beliefs. They're … sneaky and underhanded. Conniving, that's the word."

Alva said, "But white Christian Americans are perfect, I suppose."

Miss Roosevelt rolled her eyes. "We're simply stating facts, Miss Smith. Perhaps if you were better educated, you'd recognize how stupid you sound."

Armide stepped between them. "I think Mrs. Harmon is ready."

"All right then, girls," said Mrs. Harmon as she joined them. "I remind you that good Christians are generous in deed and word." She directed them each to take a basket and choose a partner, then said, "Every one of us can improve ourselves, no matter the circumstances of our births. Given sufficient tools and training, we can all be clean, responsible persons."

"Yes, Mrs. Harmon," they chirped.

Clean and responsible. That might be the most Alva and her sisters could hope to be unless at least one of them married well—a difficult achievement when there were no offers. Having first come to New York from the now-disgraced South and then returned here after spending the war years in Paris, the Smith girls were no longer quite good enough for Knickerbockers, those well-to-do gentlemen whose families were deep-rooted Manhattanites. Nor were they important enough to attract the social-climbing nouveaux riches now coming to New York in droves. They'd had to aim for the narrow in-between.

Yet even that had proven profitless. Here was the trouble: they were four perfectly nice young ladies among a throng of others of equal merit, and there were so many fewer gentlemen to try for since the war. Given all of this, Alva had reluctantly agreed to participate in a marriage plot for one of those in-between fellows, to be concluded a few weeks' hence.

Mrs. Harmon entered the building and the young ladies filed in behind her, so that they were all standing inside the oppressive, odorous hallway. The air here was much warmer than outside. Mrs. Harmon pressed her handkerchief to her neck and forehead in turn. Miss Roosevelt pressed hers to her nose.

Mrs. Harmon said, "If we act efficiently, we won't need to be here long." She assigned Miss Roosevelt and Miss Berg to the first floor, and then worked her way down in rank, up in floors. "You Smith girls, you'll have the fourth," she said, then gave a nod toward the building's dark interior. "All right? I'll be outside if you need me."

"I'm very sorry for your luck," Miss Roosevelt said.

Miss Berg said, "Yes, too bad. I hear they house the lepers and idiots up top."

"Even lepers and idiots deserve our charity," Armide replied, giving Alva a look of warning to leave it alone.

Alva marched up the stairs. She would not give them the satisfaction of believing she was offended. First floor, fourth floor—what difference was there, really? Circumstances. Nothing inherent.

Armide was close behind Alva. The scent of urine was stronger now, trapped in the stairwell along with the hot air. Trying to breathe through only her mouth as she went, Alva hooked the basket in her elbow and used both hands to keep her skirts off the greasy treads. Below, the others were already knocking on doors. Good afternoon, madam …

Their instructions: two girls to a floor, a stop at each dwelling, where they were to knock politely; announce yourselves; inquire about children in the home. If invited inside, stay in the doorway and avoid touching anything. Lice and fleas jump! They were to offer one kit for every child over the age of six but under the age of fourteen. At fourteen you were on your own. At fourteen, you might already have a means to avoid being removed from your home and shipped out from Grand Central Depot to lord knew where, sent to work on farms or ranches or plantations or in mines. Alva had heard that some Southern families were taking children to replace the slaves they'd lost in the Emancipation. Some girls who were sent west, to the territories, were being put to service as wives. She imagined it: orphaned and exiled and married off to an old pockmarked tobacco-spitting homesteader, rising before dawn to milk the goat or cow, a runny-nosed baby on one hip and another on the way … Alva was glad that Julia, her youngest sister, was fifteen.

Excerpted from A Well-Behaved Woman by Therese Fowler. Copyright © 2018 by Therese Fowler. Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.