Chapter 3Coming back from riding with her father, Samala thought how happy they always were when they were together.
They had had a long ride and talked a great deal about the estate, about their difficulties over the old people whose houses needed repairing and about the school in the village, which was very inadequate and, as the Earl had said despairingly, required a new teacher.
“If I could afford to provide a decent one, at least for the children of those I employ,” he said, “I would feel I was doing my duty for the next generation.”
It was typical of him, Samala thought, to always be thinking of other people rather than of himself and she knew that her mother had been the same.
‘If only Papa had even a little money to spend,’ she whispered to herself as they put their horses in t
