There was a young girl, flouncing, with dark hair. She immediately wondered if it was some poor Longbottom, oblivious to how the world viewed her, before she realized the ringlets were too curled.

When she turned from buying pork rinds at a stand, there the child was! Staring. At her. She was the same size as her, give or take, but her face and being suggested her much younger. Maybe around the age she’d started stepping one dainty toe over the line of propriety for extra food and coin. Prettier than she was at that age, too.

A bit like Ruth.

Oh, God. She made eye contact, and now the child was hurrying over.

“Thank you,” Lory said, touching a hand to her bosom like it was the most touching thing she’d ever been told.

“That’s how I get paid,” she kept to herself.

“Sweetie, are you here alone?”

By God, let her parents be around somewhere near. Night always came too quickly, and the last thing she wanted to do with her day was spend it playing mother hen.