We alighted. He seemed as though he were expecting to be asked in. I saw Maggie's lips set firmly together.

"We thank you, sir," she said.

He took her hand and kissed it. She drew it away very quickly.

"It was a good deed you did ... today.'' She emphasized the last word. She meant it was a good deed but it did not exonerate him for the cruel trick he had played on me.

"I thank you too," I said.

He then took my hand. "I must perforce be allowed to kiss it," which he did lingeringly, and in such a manner as to bring back memories.

"I thank you too, sir," said Kate. "You saved me from being trodden on by all those people."

She held out her hand. He took both of her hands and held them while he smiled at her.

"How glad I am that I was there. I have rarely been so happy about anything in all my life. It is a great pleasure to me to have made the acquaintance of Mistress Kate."

I took Kate's hand and drew her to the door. He bowed and turned back to the carriage.

Kate had suffered no hurt from her adventure; indeed, she was greatly stimulated by it. She could talk of nothing but her interesting and charming rescuer.

When she was in bed that night, Maggie and I talked.

"What do you make of it?" said Maggie. "It almost seemed as though he arranged it."

"He couldn't have arranged for the people to have surged forward just when he was on the spot."

"I thank God that he was," said Maggie. "But I would rather it had been anyone else who had rescued Kate."

"It may be that it was not entirely coincidental, Maggie. I have a notion that he has had some sort of watch on Kate for some time."

"What do you mean?"

"He knows she is his daughter and I suppose a father would be interested in his own child."

"Mayhap in a passing fashion. These men of the town—libertines, all of them—they want to amuse themselves with a woman and then be off. I never heard of them being overeager to share in the consequences."

"Perhaps he is not like the rest."

"You are trying to excuse yourself for having been so foolish as to have been deceived by him, perhaps," said Maggie with her customary frankness.

"That may be. But I have now and then caught a glimpse of him ... sometimes when I have been out with Kate. I have avoided looking closely and tried to pretend I was mistaken. He was there this day in the crowd. I saw him before it happened. He saw us too. That was why he was on the spot and saw the crowd pressing forward. He could have been watching Kate at that moment."

"Let us thank God that he was. I must say, it was good to have him close then. She could have been trampled underfoot. And you had to admire the way he did it. 'Stand back!' he said. And then he had them all doing his bidding, and that is not easy with a crowd like that."

"He was very interested in her."

"She's a very interesting child."

"Maggie, I am worried about him. He ... I think he liked her very much ... and she liked him."

Christobel

He did not, as I had feared he might, attempt to renew his acquaintance with Kate, and as the weeks passed into months, I began to think that Maggie was right. His interest in her was only fleeting.

Then Christobel Carew came into our lives.

It happened about two months after that encounter with Jack, and Kate had ceased to talk about him. I hoped that she had forgotten the incident.

Maggie had kept in touch with Jenny Crowther, and Jenny often called. Often I returned home to find her in the parlor and she and Maggie would be exchanging reminiscences of their early days.

One day, when I came in, I knew at once that something had happened—Maggie, who could never hide her feelings, was excited about something and was eager to tell me what it was.

Jenny Crowther was there, and obviously shared Maggie's knowledge.

"Well," I said, "what is the news?"

"Come and sit down," said Maggie, "and I'll tell you all about it."

"Don't tell me that Charles Hart or Thomas Killigrew is begging you both to play the leads in some magnificent production."

"Pigs do not fly," said Maggie.

"That means that it is not your news."

"Something far more interesting."

"I should have thought nothing could be."

"Stop teasing and listen. Jenny has been telling me about a young lady. She comes from Somerset and of a very good family. Lord of the manor and that sort."

"She has been brought up to be the perfect lady," said Jenny. "The Carews of Somerset have been an important family for the last three hundred years."

"Very commendable, but what of this young lady?"

Maggie continued: "They have recently lost their money. A disastrous fire and debts and so on. This young girl is without means and a home. She has to work."

"It must be hard for her. I dare say it is not the first time something like this has happened."

"Kate is a very bright child," said Maggie. "I have often thought that she needs to be educated by someone who really knows how to do it ... someone of good family who can teach her that little more than we are able to."

"You are suggesting that we employ a governess, and it should be this gentleman's daughter who suddenly has become impoverished?"

"That's the notion."

"Maggie, we are not in a position ..."

Maggie said: "This girl ... her name is Christobel Carew. Jenny thinks she would be delighted to come. Well, not Jenny so much, it's Rose—Rose Dawson—who knows about it all. You see, now that Rose has become so friendly with Lord Hazeldown, she moves in very high circles and that is how she has heard of this young lady. Rose knows a great deal about her. She had met her before disaster overtook the family and in fact she has spoken to her on this matter. Mistress Carew has told her that she would be glad to get a suitable post. She does not want some grand mansion. That would be too painful for her. What she wants is a home, where the people would be kind to her, treat her as an equal and there would be a roof over her head. She does not ask a large salary. I like what I hear. I think it is a big chance for Kate. Just think. She will learn gracious manners, as well as reading and writing. It's a chance in a million, Sarah."

I hesitated. I had often thought that Kate should have a governess. I was earning a fair salary at the theater, but an actress's work was not regular. Although I was by now fairly successful, I was not working all the time. I had encroached on Maggie's bounty enough.

Maggie knew what I was thinking.

"Christobel will only take a small wage. What she needs is to find the right place. When Rose told her, Jenny thought of us right away. They were certain that this is exactly the place which would suit Christobel." Maggie looked at me defiantly. "I am going to ask her to come to see us."

"Maggie, we have to think of the expense."

"It's not great. Jenny has told Christobel about Kate, and she is just the age Christobel feels she can manage. She is looking for a home like this. It can do no harm to see her."

So Christobel came.

I liked her from the beginning. It was obvious that she was of good breeding. Everything about her pointed to that. Moreover, she was modest and clearly anxious to please.

She told us much of what Jenny had and how she was eager to have some employment.

I said we could only pay a small salary and she assured me that that was not the most important thing to her. She had a very small income, which meant she need not be deeply concerned about the money. What she needed was a place where she could be with friendly people. I gathered it was her feeling that to be in a house similar to the one she had just left and in which she would now be relegated to the position of a servant—even a higher one—would have been intolerable. She was being very frank with us and she hoped we understood.

As she talked I was becoming more and more pleased with the idea. I was often at the theater. Maggie adored Kate, and Kate was certainly very fond of her, but Maggie was old and I knew that nowadays she was often in pain. It would be good for Maggie as well as Kate to have a young person in the house.

Christobel was bright and intelligent; and something told me that she was very anxious to come to us.

I looked at Maggie. "If you think we really can afford ..."

"Of course we can," said Maggie.

"I do have my small income," said Christobel. "And it is very important to me to find a place where I can be happy. I was very excited when I heard that you were the famous actress."

"Well, perhaps a little known in theatrical circles."

"She is over-modest," said Maggie happily, for she knew I was won over.

"I should very much like you to come," I said. "Shall we ask Kate how she feels?"

"I was just about to suggest it," replied Maggie.

Kate and Christobel took a liking to each other at once.

The matter was settled and Christobel joined our household.

Christobel quickly became one of us. She was natural and had no airs and graces, as Maggie called them. I could see that she was happy with her new home. Martha liked her and she and Jane were clearly pleased to have such an interesting addition to the household.

Very soon Kate and she became inseparable and it was comforting for us to know that Kate had such a companion. Always at the back of my mind, and particularly since that encounter at the time of the Duke of York's wedding, I was afraid that Jack Adair might approach Kate at some time, and I had been afraid to allow Kate out alone. That was reasonable enough when she was very young; but it was not so easy to keep a constant watch on a girl of seven or eight—particularly as our house was run on rather informal lines. Christobel supplied what we needed perfectly.

We noticed the difference in Kate. Not only could she read fluently and write well but she was developing a certain poise and confidence.

In the evenings, when I returned from the theater and Kate was in bed, Christobel would join Maggie and me and we would talk. I would tell them of how the play had gone and who had been in the audience, to which they both listened avidly, and Christobel would talk of what she and Kate had done that day. She would tell me what they were learning. Kate was very interested in literature and they went through the plays of Shakespeare and Marlowe and occasionally some of the more modern ones such as Dryden and Beaumont and Fletcher.

"Do you think she will follow her mother in her profession?" asked Maggie.

"It may be. But she seems more interested in the words than the players. She is a very practical girl. She says she does not believe that a girl would only have to put on boy's clothes to be mistaken for one, so she cannot believe in the play. But the words, she says, they are magic, they excite her and sometimes they make her weep. She is bright and she is a pleasure to teach."

I said to Maggie what a good day it was for us all when Christobel came.

Maggie said slyly: "You will remember how reluctant you were to take her."

"I do, and I remember how you saw the virtue of the project right from the start."

One day she said to me: "I often think how lucky it was for me that Kitty brought you here, and I wonder what my life would have been like without you and Kate. When Kitty went you were there. Now that I am getting old and unable to get about as I did once, I should have been a very lonely woman."

Life had settled into a pattern. The days were peaceful and time was slipping past with a speed which startled me. Another month had passed—then a year. Kate was growing up. She was now nine years old. Christobel had become one of us and Maggie and I often asked ourselves how we could have got along without her.

With the passing of time Maggie grew perceptibly more crippled and often I was working, but we had the satisfaction of knowing that Christobel was there, so I had no qualms about leaving Kate when I was working.

We lived in a little world of our own. The scandals of the theatrical circles passed lightly over me. I was now and then pursued by some amorous gallant, but I was aloof and did not wish to be embroiled in further adventures. I had had my fill. I had a reputation for being cold and virtuous, which I shared with a few—very few—other actresses. I was glad of it. It was what I wished. My life was centered on the little household of Kate and Maggie and now Christobel, not forgetting Martha and Jane. A world of women—a safe world, it seemed to me.