And because Charlie White, who mightn’t have cared about the university himself, belonged to the class that had abused the Anglicans, John Master had experienced an unconscious aversion to seeing the carter and his family just then. It was quite unfair, and he was scarcely aware of it. But he hadn’t gone over to Charlie’s house, even by the year’s end.

It was New Year’s Day when John Master announced his surprise. He led up to it gradually.

“You know, Mercy,” he said, “the unpleasantness of those two Yale men and all the bad feeling over the university has been making me think, I wouldn’t mind getting away from the city for a while.”

“We could stay in the country, John,” she suggested. “Or we could go to some of my relations in Philadelphia, if you like.”

“There’s another problem though, which prevents my going away to either of those places,” he continued. “I’m concerned about all the business we have going through Albion’s, when I don’t really know them.”

Five years ago, when his father’s old London agent had retired, he’d recommended that the Masters transfer the agency to the firm of Albion. The arrangement had worked well so far, but the relationship had been conducted entirely by letter; and with the London shipments increasing every year, John considered it was time he got to know the Albions personally, and assess them against the other trading houses.

“What do you mean to do then?” she asked.

“I thought,” and now his handsome face broke into a grin, “that I’d better go to London. And I wondered whether perhaps you’d like to come.”

London

1759

OH TO BE in England. And here she was. On the very Thames itself, at the heart of Britain’s empire.

Ships, towers, domes and church steeples lay crowded under the glittering sky. On the waterfront, the old gray Tower of London spoke for antiquity. On the ridge above, the great dome of Protestant St. Paul’s looked so stately, majestic and dependable. With joy and excitement Mercy prepared to set foot, at last, on dry land.

And for all its faults—the sooty fogs from five centuries of coalfires, an underclass addicted to cheap gin, the vast discrepancies between rich and poor—London was a glorious place. It was by far the largest city in Europe. The crooked, rat-infested alleys of the medieval city had mostly disappeared in the Great Fire of the previous century—though magnificent gothic halls and churches still remained—to be replaced by the splendid streets and squares of Georgian houses that spread in a huge sweep from the city to Westminster. To think that it was all, for months, to be hers. Why she hadn’t a care in the world.

Except for young James, that was.