‘I wasn’t sure what yer’d want, miss,’ the girl told her with a cheery smile. ‘So I’ve put a bit of everythin’ that were goin’ on. Just leave what yer don’t want. An’ cook says to tell yer that yer more than welcome to join the staff in the kitchen fer breakfast, if yer’d prefer it to havin’ it in yer room.’

‘That’s reet kind of yer, Daisy,’ Amber answered and then suddenly corrected it to, ‘That’s very kind of you, Daisy.’ She supposed she should at least make an effort to speak as the boys did – for the time she was working with them at least.

‘So what ’ave the little terrors got in mind fer today?’ Daisy asked pleasantly as she placed the tray on the table by the window.

‘They ain— haven’t really said yet,’ Amber answered as she eyed the food. There looked enough on the plates to feed her and the boys and she knew she wouldn’t be able to eat even half of it, but it was kind of Daisy to have thought of her.

‘I ’eard the mistress an’ Mrs Temple sayin’ they were goin’ shoppin’,’ Daisy told her as she turned to leave and with a cheeky grin she confided, ‘They do a lot o’ that when Mrs Temple comes to stay. I dare say yer ain’t got as many shops at the coast as we ’ave ’ere?’

‘I couldn’t really say seein’ as I haven’t seen much o’ London yet,’ Amber answered as she poured herself a cup of tea.

Daisy nodded. ‘In that case, if yer can wangle any time off I’ll ’ave to take yer sightseein’. I’m off next Sunday so we’ll ’ave to see what we can do. Ta-ra fer now.’ And with that she was off as Amber sat down to tackle the gigantic feast the girl had brought her.

As it happened, later in the week, which luckily passed with the boys on their best behaviour, Amber discovered that they were to go to church on Sunday morning with their mother and grandmother and then they were going to have lunch with them, so Mrs Temple told Amber that she wouldn’t need her services until late in the afternoon.

They were now into November and as she and Daisy set off on Sunday morning, the streets were shrouded in a thick yellow fog and it was bitterly cold.

‘Oh, this is horrible,’ Amber said as she pulled her scarf up over her mouth.

Daisy, looking quite resplendent in her Sunday best, which included a very pretty bonnet trimmed with silk flowers, giggled. ‘We call it smog an’ yer get used to it when yer live ’ere,’ she told her. ‘I don’t mind it meself. It’s the snow I don’t like. Do yer get snow in Whitby?’