“The least said on that point the better,” she said. “But lest you misunderstand, Anne, I am not one whit sorry that I did hire you, and so I suppose it was just as well that at the time I did not understand the connection between Lydmere in Cornwall, where you came from, the Marquess of Hallmere, who lived at nearby Penhallow, and Lady Freyja Bedwyn. Miss Osbourne.”

Her voice rose above all other sounds as the girls paused in their rounds, and Susanna turned a bright, laughing face and halted the line.

“Lady Potford’s, I believe,” Miss Martin said, indicating the house next to which they had stopped. “I would rather you than me, Anne, but have fun.”

David detached himself from his position in the line to join Anne, Susanna grinned at her, and the crocodile continued on its way toward Sally Lunn’s beyond the abbey on the other side of the river.

“Good-bye, David,” a few of the girls called, bolder than they would normally have been when out in public-the holiday spirit prevailed. “Good-bye, Miss Jewell. Wish you were coming too.”

Claudia Martin rolled her eyes and struck off after her cherished girls.

As Miss Martin had just indicated, it was not the first time Anne had called upon Lady Potford at her home on Great Pulteney Street. She had called here-with some trepidation-with a letter of introduction four years ago when she first came to teach at Miss Martin’s school and she had been invited to return several times since.

But today was a special occasion, and looking down at nine-year-old David after she had rapped the knocker against the door, Anne could see the light of excited anticipation in his eyes. The Marquess of Hallmere was his favorite person in the world even though they did not often see each other. Joshua had been invariably kind to him, though, when they had met-twice when Anne and David had been invited to spend a week of a school holiday at Penhallow, the marquess’s country seat in Cornwall, and twice when the marquess had been in Bath and had called at the school to take David out in his curricle. And he never forgot to send gifts for birthdays and Christmas.