And so she had. They’d taken the family carriage up Manhattan, right across Westchester County to the Croton dam, where an engineer had been delighted to show them the sluices and the start of the canals. They’d driven down, looked into the gatehouses at the Harlem River and walked across the bridge. They’d inspected the aqueducts, the reservoirs, the pipes. The whole expedition had taken four days, and many miles of walking.

And finally, right in front of that fortress-like reservoir at Forty-second Street, Frank Master had turned to this remarkable young woman, gone down on one knee and asked her to marry him—which, all in all, Hetty reckoned was worth the walk.

Now, therefore, with the maps spread out on the table, Frank Master and his wife spent a happy half-hour looking at the towns and territories up the new Hudson railroad that seemed most promising for future development. And they were still busily engaged in this manner when a maid announced that Miss Keller and the Irish girl had arrived.

“I want to see this Irish girl, Hetty,” said Master, “because we need to be very careful.”

“Most of the servants in this city are Irish, Frank,” his wife pointed out.

“I know. But there’s Irish, and Irish. There are plenty of respectable ones. The people to avoid are the Irish from Five Points—half of them are so weak that they’re prone to disease.”

“Someone’s got to help them, Frank.”

“Yes, but we’ve young children to consider. And the ones that aren’t sick are criminals. Gangs of them. Look what happened at Astor Place the other day.”

That had been an awful business—a riot of Irish from the Bowery, set off by the appearance of an aristocratic English actor, at the new Astor Opera House, no less. One could understand the Irish blaming England for the horrors of the Famine, but with revolutionary elements causing disruptions all over Europe that year, the New York authorities weren’t taking any chances. The militia had been called in, and they’d fired on the crowd. A hundred and fifty wounded, and more than twenty dead.

“I don’t want any Irish from the Bowery,” Master said firmly.

“Gretchen says she’s very quiet and respectable.”

“She may be. But I want to know about her family—are they respectable people too? And there’s another thing to watch out for.”

“What’s that, dear?”

“Tammany Hall.” It was as obvious to Frank as it had been to his ancestors that the better sort, the solid men of property, should rule the city. The men that Tammany Hall elected in the city wards were just the kind to beware of. “I don’t want any of those people insinuating themselves into this house,” he declared.

“I’ll be careful, Frank,” said Hetty.