he world's weight. She had passed a whole night in revolt
against George Cannon's indignity; she had called it, furiously, an
insult. She had said to herself: "Well, if I'm so useless as all that,
I'll never go near his office again." But the next afternoon she had
appeared as usual at the office, meek, modest, with a smile, fatigued
and exquisitely resigned, and a soft voice. And she had worked with even
increased energy and devotion. This kissing of the rod, this irrational
instinctive humility, was a strange and sweet experience for her. Such
was the Hilda of the office; but Hilda at home, cantankerous, obstinate,
and rude, had offered a remarkable contrast to her until the moment when
it was decided that her mother should accompany Miss Gailey to London.
From that moment Hilda at home had been an angel, and the Hilda of the
office had shown some return of sturdy pride.

To-day the first number of _The Five Towns Chronicle_ was to go to
press.... The delays had been inexplicable and exasperating to Hilda,
though she had not criticized them, even to herself; they were now over.
The town had no air of being excited about the appearance of its new
paper. But the office was excited. The very room itself looked feverish.
It was changed; more tables had been brought into it, and papers and
litter had accumulated enormously; it was a room humanized by
habitation, with a physiognomy that was individual and sympathetic.

From beyond the closed door of the inner room came the sound of men's
rapid voices. Hilda could distinguish Mr. Cannon's and Arthur Dayson's;
there was a third, unfamiliar to her. Having nothing to do, she began to
make work, rearranging the contents of her table, fingering with a
factitious hurry the thick bundles of proofs of correspondence from the
villages (so energetically organized by the great Dayson), and the now
useless 'copy,' and the innumerable letters, that Dayson was always
disturbing, and the samples of encaustic tiles brought in by an inventor
who desired the powerful aid of the press, and the catalogues, and
Dayson's cuttings from the Manchester, Birmingham, and London papers,
and the notepaper and envelopes and cards, and Veale Chifferiel & Co.'s
almanac that had somehow come up with other matters from Mr. Karkeek's
office below. And then she dusted, with pursed lips that blamed the
disgraceful and yet excusable untidiness of men, and then she examined,
with despair and with pride, her dirty