He smiled as he came to a stop, and she returned it, then said, “Right on time, Finn.”

Seating himself next to her, he said, “I like to be punctual. And how have ye been?”

“I am doing very well, and Mrs. Wilson is nice, a kind person. She’s made me feel welcome and at home. So, are we going to have a bite to eat? Go into Leeds?”

“Yes. I am going ter take ye to the Blue Door … where we went with Patrick Kennedy.”

“Oh, that’s lovely, Finn. It was a nice place.”

Finn put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a letter. “Mr. Kennedy wrote a note to the waitress, Gladys, just to make sure she looks after us, does well by us.”

Moira nodded, stifling a smile. After a moment, she murmured, “That was kind of him.” Her amusement still bubbled inside of her and she stood up, trying to quell it.

She could have handled everything quite easily; she didn’t need a letter. Still, he had meant well, she thought, and said, “Let us walk down to Whingate Junction, shall we? And take a tram into Leeds.”

“Right away!” Finn exclaimed, jumped up, adding, “I’m glad ye like the Blue Door enough to go back again.”

Moira preferred to sit on the lower level of the tram, and she explained this to Finn as they walked down the hill together. To their pleasure they saw that a tram had just pulled in from the city, and they began to run. They were laughing together as they jumped onto it alertly, slightly startling the driver, who scowled at them.

“Lead the way,” Moira said, and she followed Finn. He went along the lower level and stopped at a double seat. She slid in first, and he joined her.

“I will pay the fares,” he announced grandly, and took some change out of his pocket.

“Then I must pay on the return journey,” Moira said in a firm voice.

Within a few minutes, the tram set off. Moira settled back, looking forward to seeing the city. She had always had a thirst for knowledge, a curiosity about everything and a great ability for learning.

When she was growing up, she had had lessons every day with her half brother, Lawrence; his mother insisted on that. He was several years older than she, and so she got a head start very young. An image of Lawrence popped into her head. He was at Oxford now, in his third year. When he graduated, he would return to the estate near Bath, where his late father had grown up. She thought of that lovely house, Waverly Priory, and a sudden rush of longing rippled through her, tinged with sadness. Until she had come to Leeds she had lived only there and on the large estate in Galway, which she had left so suddenly. Both had been her homes.