A Tale of Two Choices

In the work house the clocks were chiming twelve. Little Dorothea Blenkinsop had been sewing sacking for seven hours without a break. She was in a bare room with little natural light with seventeen other orphans, all sewing sacking which would never be used.

The silence in this room was maintained by the fierce son of the Work House owner, Noah Trystell, who would sooner thump an orphan than talk kindly to it with a green smelling breath.

At the noon hour...