Then they heard footsteps on the other side of the door and a moment later it opened.
The girl who stood there was an unprepossessing sight.
She was wearing an apron of sacking that had holes in it, a dress that, although clean, was threadbare and her hair scraped back from her forehead had lank wisps over her ears.
She looked ill and emaciated and the bones of her cheeks seemed unnaturally sharp as she stared firstly at the Marquis and then at Peregrine with an expression of surprise on her face.
Then with an obvious start, as if she remembered her manners, she dropped a curtsey.
“I am the Marquis of. Alchester,” the Marquis announced. “I wish to see over the orphanage. Is Matron here?”
“Y-yes – my Lord.
The question obviously agitated the thin girl.
She spoke with a cultured voi
