as the swarm of children exploded in all directions. Mrs.
Partington (she would have said) was waiting for her children--Jimmy,
Maggie and 'Erb--and there were lying within upon the bare table three
thick slices of bread and black jam; as a matter of fact, she was
looking out for her lodgers, who should have arrived by midday.

Then she became aware that they were coming, even as she looked,
advancing down the empty street _en echelon_. Two of them she knew well
enough--they had lodged with her before; but the third was to be a
stranger, and she was already interested in him--the Major had hinted at
wonderful mysteries....

So she shaded her eyes against the cold glare and watched them
carefully, with that same firm, resolute face with which she always
looked out upon the world; and even as, presently, she exchanged that
quick, silent nod of recognition with the Major and Gertie, still she
watched the brown-faced, shabby young man who came last, carrying his
bundle and walking a little lame.

"You're after your time," she said abruptly.

The Major began his explanations, but she cut them short and led the way
into the house.

(II)

I find it very difficult to record accurately the impression that Frank
made upon Mrs. Partington; but that the impression was deep and definite
became perfectly clear to me from her conversation. He hardly spoke at
all, she said, and before he got work at the jam factory he went out for
long, lonely walks across the marshes. He and the Major slept together,
it seemed, in one room, and Gertie, temporarily with the children and
Mrs. Partington in another. (Mr. Partington, at this time, happened to
be away on one of his long absences.) At meals Frank was always quiet
and well-behaved, yet not ostentatiously. Mrs. Partington found no fault
with him in that way. He would talk to the children a little before they
went to school, and would meet them sometimes on their way back from
school; and all three of them conceived for him an immense and
indescribable adoration. All this, however, would be too long to set
down in detail.

It seems to have been a certain air of pathos which Mrs. Partington
herself cast around him, which affected her the most, and I imagine her
feeling to have been largely motherly. There was, however, another
element very obviously visible, which, in anyone but Mrs. Partington, I
should call reverence.... She told me that she could not imagine why he
was traveling w