o I brought it
myself, and I thought you wouldn't care for to see me in your skirt,
miss, not while on duty, miss, 'specially here like! So I up quick and
changed it back."

"Telegram?" Hilda repeated the word.

Florrie, breathless after running and all this whispering, advanced in
the prettiest confusion towards the throne, and Hilda took the telegram
with a gesture as casual as she could manage. Florrie's abashed mien,
and the arrival of the telegram, stiffened her back and steadied her
hand. Imagine that infant being afraid of her, Hilda! This too was life!
And the murmur of the men in the inner room was thrilling to Hilda's
ears.

She brusquely opened the telegram and read: "Lessways, Lessways Street,
Turnhill. Mother ill. Can you come?--Gailey."

CHAPTER XIII
HILDA'S WORLD

I

The conversation in the inner room promised to be interminable. Hilda
could not decide what to do. She felt no real alarm on her mother's
account. Mrs. Lessways, often slightly indisposed, was never seriously
ill; she possessed one of those constitutions which do not go to
extremes of disease; if a malady overtook her, she invariably 'had' it
in a mild form. Doubtless Sarah Gailey, preoccupied and worried by new
responsibilities, desired to avoid the added care of nursing the sick.
Hence the telegram. Moreover, if the case had been grave, she would not
have put the telegram in the interrogative; she would have written,
'Please come at once.' No, Hilda was not unduly disturbed. Nevertheless,
she had an odd idea that she ought to rush to the station and catch the
next train, which left Knype at five minutes to four; this idea did not
spring from her own conscience, but rather from the old-fashioned
collective family conscience. But at a quarter to four, when it was
already too late to catch the local train at Turnhill, the men had not
emerged from the inner room; nor had Hilda come to any decision. As the
departure of her mother and Miss Gailey had involved much solemn poring
over time-tables, it happened that she knew the times of all the trains
to London; to catch the next and last she would have to leave Turnhill
at _5.55_. She said that she would wait and see. Her work for the first
number of the paper was practically done, but there was this mysterious
conclave which fretted her curiosity and threatened exciting
development; also the Majuba disaster would mean trouble for somebody.
And in any event she hated the very thoug