"Four shillings, sir."
"And where were you before Bath?"
"My cousins at Chippenham. And before that, my great-aunt's house at Wilcott for nine years."
"And your cousins would not keep you?"
"My cousins had me a fortnight, and they were not unkind, and there were six of them in a house for five," said Hannah Sedge. "They found out I had not been left anything, and everything got a great deal more difficult, and I do not blame them, and I would rather not discuss it on a doorstep."
Nicholas Ware put his hands behind his back. "Miss Sedge?"
"Hannah Sedge."
"Miss Sedge, I am going to say something to you now that is going to sound like the worst kind of insult. And I am asking you to hear the whole of it before you decide what it is, because I have not got the health to say things twice, and I would rather do it badly and quickly than well and slowly."
Hannah Sedge stood on that step with her bag. "Say it," she said.