Lily touched the velvet, cautiously, and still could not believe it. “It’s so beautiful.” Too beautiful for someone of her station, but to tell them that would be ungrateful, and that would be wrong. Besides, she wanted more than anything to have and keep that hood. It took an effort to look up, but she met Marion’s expectant eyes and said, “I like it very much.” And then she looked at Mrs. Bell, still seated at the table, and at Mr. Bell, who stood to one side watching her, and told them, “Thank ye. ’Tis a kindness I do not deserve.”

“Of course you do,” said Mr. Bell. Coming close, he took the blue hood from the remnants of its wrappings and with sure hands tied it over Lily’s head, then held a silver knife up from the table with its flat edge to her so that she could see her own reflection in its polished surface. “There, you see? That face deserves much kindness. And a hood, else you’ll be like to lose your ears next time we walk to church, the wind has been that cold of late.”

It was his smile that warmed her more than anything, but Lily gladly wore her new blue hood to keep the wind away, though it was not the wind alone that made the town feel colder.

Increasingly that month, when they were walking back from Sabbath service at the abbey church, they met disturbances outside the house of Mr. Bruce, the engineer, midway along the Canongate.

It was well-known that Mr. Bruce and Mistress Bruce were Catholics, and each Sabbath several of their friends—including noble ladies, with their servants—came to celebrate the Catholic service at their house. This had been tolerated well enough before, and they’d been left in peace.

That peace had ended.

The first week Lily and the Bell family had passed the house of Mr. Bruce, there’d been only a few boys who had gathered at the door to jeer and taunt the people leaving after service. Mistress Bruce had chased them off with ease, although the sight and sound had been unpleasant.

The next week there assembled a much larger crowd, more dangerous, some wielding sticks and others flinging ugly words, while redcoat soldiers had stood by encouraging the trouble.

On the final Sabbath of the month, the final day of January, Nanse called Lily early from her work, before the bells had yet begun to ring to summon everyone to service.

“Make haste, now,” said Nanse. “The mistress would away while all is quiet in the street.”

The street was quiet, then, but all through service Lily could not concentrate for worrying what might be taking place outside the Bruces’ house.

She could not understand why Catholics were not better liked. After all, as Anna Moray had taught her, “a long time ago, everybody in Scotland was Catholic.” And now their King James was a Catholic, as was their own chancellor, and Catholics weren’t so different from Episcopalians in how they worshipped and what they believed.