‘Of course!’ Miss Johnson stared into the fire, which was now burning merrily. ‘It’s just that I have a – predicament and I don’t know what to do.’ She stifled a sob and put her hands to her face. ‘I am at the end of my wits.’

She’s older than me, Ellen thought. I don’t suppose I can help her. Though perhaps I can.

‘Is there anything I can do for you?’ she asked. ‘Is it your mother? She’s not ill, is she?’ It would be awful if she were, Ellen thought. Nobody would want to be trapped in a cold upstairs room when feeling ill. ‘Are you not at work today? Is it because of your mother?’

‘My Mutter is the best in the world,’ she answered. ‘And if she is ill, it is I who has made her so.’ Her accent, normally slight, was now strong and guttural. ‘It is because of me she is sitting in a cold room when she could be sitting in comfort in my brother’s house.’

Ellen stared at her. ‘Would you like to tell me about it?’ she said softly. ‘I can’t promise that I can help you, but perhaps talking about your problem might enable you to see a solution.’

Miss Johnson stared back at her. ‘You are so young,’ she murmured. ‘And you have a husband and children.’ She glanced towards the bed where Thomas was fast asleep and Sarah had picked up her dolly again and was rocking it gently, talking to it and wrapping it up in one of Ellen’s shawls.

‘I was married at eighteen,’ Ellen told her, thinking that everyone regarded her as young. ‘We didn’t want to wait, though we could have done.’

‘I don’t mean to pry.’ Miss Johnson gave a small smile, which Sarah thought lightened her features entirely.

‘Does your mother not want to live with your brother?’ Ellen asked.

‘She would live with him and his wife and children,’ Miss Johnson looked down into her lap, ‘if I would go too.’

Ellen was shocked. ‘And have you not been invited?’

‘Oh, yes, I would be made very welcome; my brother will gladly give me a home, but I don’t want to live with him and his family. I won’t.’ Tears flooded her eyes. ‘I don’t care for his wife, nor she for me, but that is not the reason; it is challenging, but not insurmountable. She is a good Jewish woman. No, it is my fault entirely. My difficulty is that my brother wants me to marry a friend of his; it would be a good match between our families. We have come far together. The trouble, you see, is that I love a man who is not of our faith. He is not a Jew.’