Uncle Eb seemed very pleased. ‘Well, if ’e don’t like them, dog bite ’im, is all I can say.’

‘Ooh, aren’t they pretty?’ Bridget breathed, peering short-sightedly at them.

Each of the frames stood out around its picture, each a slightly differently wrought twine of leaves, buds and flowers; an ivy here, an acorn there, set with gorgeously toning colours of emerald and ruby and other less precious, though no less vivid, stones: garnet and jasper, malachite, topaz and rose quartz. The collection, laid across the desk, glowed in the gloom, adding a majesty to the faces of the seven German sisters. The sight of them lifted Margaret’s spirits.

‘Right,’ Uncle Eb said. ‘We must get them packed off and sent today.’ And he gathered them up as if they were tea plates and disappeared.

Margaret sat back at her work table. ‘Haven’t you ever wanted to learn to do all these things, Auntie?’ she asked.

Aunt Hatt turned to her, her lovely face wearing a gentle smile. ‘Oh, yes – and I did, a bit. From my father. But it’s all a man’s world really, that side of things, and someone’s got to run the business. Eb’s not very good in the paperwork department. He never got on with that side of things. So . . .’ She shrugged. ‘There it is.’

‘Women just do the chains – and the polishing and such,’ Susan put in, in a tone which suggested that this was the unchanging law of the universe. ‘Oh – and the pen nibs, like your sister.’

‘I see,’ Margaret said, a little discouraged by this, thinking of Philip’s offer to teach her. She smiled. ‘Well – you’re a very good team, the pair of you.’

Annie came home with news that Mary Poole had come back to Masters, Hogg & Co. looking for work, but there were no vacancies at the time so she had been taken on in the piercing room at Brandauer’s in New John Street West.

‘Well, that’s good,’ Aunt Hatt said, though sounding doubtful. She still could not get over the fact of Mary Poole handing Nellie over to the orphanage, even though she could understand that the woman had been at her wits’ end.

‘Yes.’ Annie’s voice was sad. ‘Lizzie said they’re all feeling a bit more hopeful now there’s another wage coming in, even though the house feels terrible without Nellie. She says as soon as they’ve picked up a bit, they’ll be able to get her back.’

‘But won’t that mean Mary having to stop work again?’ Margaret asked. ‘Or finding someone to look after her?’

Annie nodded. Her face looked pale and strained. ‘I didn’t like to ask. It was nice to see Lizzie looking a bit more cheerful and not having to provide for all of them by herself.’