Mrs.Lessways had evidently opened the back door to somebody, and taken her at once into the sitting-room.

The occurrence was unusual.
Hilda went softly out on to the landing and listened, but she could catch nothing more than a faint, irregular murmur.

Scarcely had she stationed herself on the landing when her mother burst out of the sitting-room, and called loudly: "Hilda!" And again in an instant, very impatiently and excitedly, long before Hilda could possibly have appeared in response, had she been in her bedroom, as her mother supposed her to be: "Hilda!" Hilda could see without being seen.

Mrs.Lessways' thin, wrinkled face, bordered by her untidy but still black and glossy hair, was upturned from below in an expression of tragic fretfulness.

It was the uncontrolled face, shamelessly expressive, of one who thinks himself unwatched.