And one day Hilda and her mother and Florrie would be united again in the home now deserted, whose heavy key was in the traveller's satchel....
But would they?
At the station there was a quarter of an hour to wait.

Hilda dismissed Florrie, with final injunctions, and followed her trunk to the bleak platform.

The old porter was very kind.

She went to the little yellow bookstall.

There, under her hand, was a low pile of _The Five Towns Chronicle._ Miracle! Miraculous George Cannon! She flushed with pride, with a sense of ownership, as she took a penny from her purse to pay for a copy.
"It's th' new peeper," drawled the bookstall lad, with a most foolish condescension towards the new paper.
"Lout!" she addressed him in her heart.