‘James,’ Ann hissed, stretching out a hand to her son. ‘Get up and stop walking so fast.’

James lingered, sulking, until Miss Graham arrived. She brushed the snow from his coat and nodded for him to walk on, which he did, snivelling.

‘Big baby!’ shouted Lizzie.

Ann wagged her finger at her daughter then burrowed her hands deeply into her fur muff.

Mrs Baxter, struggling to keep her footing in the slush, clamped onto her husband’s arm. ‘Why could she not have called a carriage on a day like today,’ she whispered.

‘You heard her, there are none available. If you walk slowly, you’ll be fine,’ Baxter replied, patting her arm.

Ann looked round and chided their slowness. ‘Oh, do hurry up, it’s not so bad.’

They arrived at the top of Roseangle and Ann looked towards the tenement buildings at the other side of Perth Road. Four storeys high, they had solid stone fronts dotted with long narrow windows.

‘Mamma, what is it like inside those houses?’

‘Dark.’

‘How do they get to the top floor? Is there a big stair like in our house?’

Ann pointed at a close entrance. ‘There’s stairs inside that go up to the very top floor.’

A couple of boys ran out of the close of one of the tenements and jumped into a pile of snow that had been cleared to the side of the road. They laughed as they emerged, covered in wet snow. James and Lizzie both stared at the boys, who had no shoes on. They wore ragged trousers and dirty shirts.

‘Where are those boys’ coats and boots, Mamma?’ James asked.

‘They have none, dearest boy.’ Ann stopped near the entrance to the church. ‘Come along now, it’s time to enter the kirk. ‘Best behaviour and no looking round from the pew, Lizzie, like you did last week.’

‘Last week Pappa was with us. Shall I take his seat, Mamma?’ James looked up to his mother and pushed his shoulders up high.

‘That would be good, yes, you might enter the pew last, James.’ Ann said, drawing her dark grey cloak round her. She pushed her black bonnet down a little over her forehead at an angle she knew suited her profile. She would walk down the aisle slowly as usual, knowing the other members of the congregation would be looking at her statuesque figure.

‘Hat, James!’ she whispered to her son, who was still gazing at the two boys frolicking in the snow over the road. He swept it off and put it under his arm, as he had seen his father do on countless occasions.