Hannah: Daughters of the Sea #1 by Kathryn Lasky Page A

with the fastenings.”
    A minute later Hannah had tied the full-length white pinafore apron around her and put on the upstairs regulation maid’s hat, which looked like a pancake with a frill around it. Mrs. Bletchley measured her approvingly. “Well, the apron’s not pressed, which wouldn’t do if they was here, and you’ve got the cap on cockeyed.” She straightened it out. “All right, now run upstairs and help Daze and Florrie with them trunks. Miss Horton will direct you.”
    On the third-floor landing, Hannah nearly collided with Florrie, who was obscured by a huge, fluffy cloud of crinolines. “Go to Lila’s room, Daze is there.”
    “Which is Lila’s room?”
    “Last on the right, just after the nursery.”
    Hannah peeked into the nursery as she walked by. The dollhouse was set on a low table, an exact replica down to the lampposts on the sidewalk. She couldn’t resist going in for a closer look. Hannah crouched down on her knees. It was empty of furnishings, but even so, she had never seen or imagined anything like it. Everything from the wallpaper to the gas lighting fixtures were identical to the real ones except in miniature. She even found her own room, tucked in at the very top of the house under the narrow dormer.
    “Come along now!” Florrie stuck her head into the nursery. “I’ll let you help me with it later. But Daze needs your help getting these clothes organized.”
    Hannah got up and followed Daze into Lila’s bedroom. Never had she seen such a lovely bedroom. The bed was hung with a gossamer canopy embroidered with flowers that exactly matched the onespainted on the headboard. The curtains matched the canopy and there was a lovely thick carpet with gold-colored fringe. On the dresser were delicate porcelain figurines of animals. Across from the dresser, there was a writing desk with gilt edges and an array of elegant pens set in silver holders at the edge of a blotter. A white and gold plant stand that spilled with pansies and ivy stood by the desk. Pansies already! Hannah thought.
    “Whatcha be gawking at, girl?” Daze said, looking up from the trunk she was already unpacking. She was plump with a rounded, dimpled face and a delicate spray of freckles that spanned her nose and cheeks, giving her a naturally rosy appearance.
    Hannah had been trying to place Daze’s accent ever since she had met her the previous day. It was very odd. Not really Irish. There were so many Irish children at The Home that Hannah had even been able to pinpoint if they spoke with the clipped cadences of County Clare or Sligo, County Kilkenny or Kildare. Daze’s speech was clipped, but then it suddenly seemed to swoop up at the end of words orsentences only to be chopped off almost with a hiccup.
    “I’m gawking at everything! I’ve never seen such a room. It’s like a princess’s.” Hannah looked around. It was hard to imagine that all these beautiful things were for just one girl, only one year older than herself. She bet that the furniture and all the gewgaws in this one room cost more than the fabled one thousand dollars that Mr. Marston earned in a year.
    But if Hannah had a little seaside cottage, she wouldn’t need any of this. She would have shells for decoration and no curtains so she could watch the sea day and night. And she would not have nearly as many clothes. Indeed, although her terrible rash was gone, she remembered how free it had felt to wear no undergarments. She had never felt “depraved” as matron had suggested.
    Daze snorted, “Yeah, that what Miss Lila be, a princess, if not a queen. See that heat stove over there in the corner?”
    “Yes.” There was a small porcelain coal-burning stove that was painted with delicate flowers.
    “It’s a copy of one that belonged to a famous French queen—Marie Antoinette, the one that went and got her head chopped off.”
    “Ooooh! Who’d want one like that?”
    “Not me, but we ain’t Miss Lila, are we? She’s a little