It was Tansy who recovered first. Bounding off” one of the cots, where she’d sat cross-legged, she hurled herself at Maggie and cried, “Ain’t it good to see you, though! And you almost the mistress of this grand ’ouse!”

Maggie laughed and hugged her friend. “I’ve missed you,” she said, blinking away the mist that had gathered in her eyes.

Tansy returned the hug and then whirled to face half a dozen wide-eyed maids. “I told you, didn’t I?” she reprimanded them good-naturedly, spreading her hands wide of her body. “She’s a regular sort, our Maggie! We’ve nothin’ to fear from ’er.”

The other girls, Caroline among them, did not look convinced. “She’s the master’s lady,” one of them, a very plain girl with acne-scarred skin, dared to say.

“I ain’t so sure she’s a lady,” someone else put in, and there was a twitter of giggles.

Tansy, as insulted as if the remark had been directed at her, bristled at Maggie’s side. “Is that ’ow it is, then? You’re too good, the lot of you, to play a ’armless game of cards with me friend?”

Another girl came forward, shyly, with a faltering smile on her lips. “My name’s Shirley,” she said, offering a friendly hand to Maggie as her eyes took in the tired gray dress. “Ain’t he goin’ to fix you up properlike, like he did Miss Loretta?”

There was a communal groan at the mention of Loretta, and then Caroline piped up. “You all know he’s gotten Miss Maggie a ring—I told you at supper!”

Tansy’s eyes were wide as she turned to face Maggie. “A ring, is it? Let me see!”

Maggie showed the magnificent ring not only to Tansy, but to all the others as well. There were ooos and ahhhs aplenty, and then Tansy said, “Well? Is me friend to join in the game or not? If she ain’t, we’ll just go off, ’er and me, to see what we might see!”

“She can play,” sighed the girl with the poor complexion, and soon Maggie was a part of a rousing game of whist, having more fun than she’d had in weeks.

When it grew late, the games ended, and Maggie walked Tansy as far as the rear garden, where her new beau, Jack Fly, was supposed to be waiting to see her home.

“Coo,” Tansy breathed, admiring the ring one last time in the light of the broad February moon. “Ain’t this goin’ to curl Lady Cosgrove’s ’air. She’ll ’ave to accept you as an equal!”

Maggie doubted that Lady Cosgrove would ever accept her, married to Reeve McKenna or not. She’d gone beyond the pale as far as that good woman was concerned.

“About time, it is!” complained a male voice from behind a row of bushes. “I’ve got ’orses to groom tonight, you know!”