No immediate response being forthcoming, she called again, more loudly, and moved to the foot of the stairs. But even as she set her foot on the bottom step, a door at the end of the passage burst open, and a lady in a flowered print dress, with an old-fashioned tucker round her ample bosom, and a starched muslin cap tied in a bow beneath her chin, stood as though stunned on the threshold, and gasped: “Miss Kate! It’s never you! Oh, my dearie, my precious lambkin!”

She started forward, holding out her plump arms, and Miss Malvern, laughing and crying, tumbled into them, hugging her, and uttering disjointedly: “Oh, Sarah, oh, Sarah! To be with you again! I’ve been thinking of nothing else, all the way! Oh, Sarah, I’m so tired, and dispirited, and there was nowhere else for me to go, but indeed I don’t mean to impose on you, or on poor Mr Nidd! Only until I can find another situation!”

Several teardrops stood on Mrs Nidd’s cheeks, but she said in a scolding voice: “Now, that’s no way to talk, Miss Kate, and well you know it! And where else should you go, I should like to know? Now, you come into the kitchen, like a good girl, while I pop the kettle on, and cut some bread-and-butter!”

Miss Malvern dried her eyes, and sighed: “Oh, dear, would you have believed I could be so ticklish? It was such a horrid journey—six of us inside!—and no time to swallow more than a sip of coffee when we stopped for breakfast.”

Mrs Nidd, leading her into the kitchen, and thrusting her into a chair, demanded: “Are you telling me you came on the common stage, Miss Kate?”

“Yes, of course I did. Well, you couldn’t expect them to have sent me by post, could you? And if you’re thinking of the Mail, I am excessively glad they didn’t send me by that either, because it reached London just after four o’clock in the morning! What should I have done?”