Cindy Rosenheim

When Marie-Grace discovers a baby outside her father's office and a slave catcher claims the boy, she helps place him at a white orphanage where she becomes a volunteer, as her friendship with Cecile grows and she hears rumors of yellow fever.

Cécile is enjoying her older brother Armand's return from France and her growing friendship with Marie-Grace, with whom she volunteers at an orphanage, until the yellow fever epidemic theatening New Orleans strikes her own household.

Cécile Rey, whose prosperous family are free people of color, makes friends with Marie-Grace Gardner, who has just returned to her native New Orleans in 1853, and persuades her to change places at their separate Mardi Gras balls.