bman had climbed down and was
dragging the trunk after him, she put out an arm and seized one handle
of the trunk to help him, which act, so strange on the part of a young
lady, made Hilda, coming nearer and nearer, look more carefully. She was
astounded as she realized that the unknown young lady was not a young
lady after all, but the familiar Florrie at the advanced age of sixteen.

The aged cabman had made no mistake. He left the tin trunk on the
pavement and took timid Florrie's money without touching his hat for it.
Florrie was laying her sunshade rather forlornly on the top of the tin
trunk and preparing to lift the trunk unaided, when Mr. Boutwood, stout
and all in black, came gallantly forth from the house to assist her.
Sarah Gailey's opposition had not been persistent enough to keep the
jovial Mr. Boutwood out of No. 59. Shortly after Christmas his wife had
died suddenly, and Mr. Boutwood, with plenty of time and plenty of money
on his hands, had found himself desolated. In his desolation he had
sought his old acquaintance George Cannon, and the result had somehow
been that bygones had become bygones and a new boarder had increased the
prosperity of No. 59. Sarah Gailey could not object. Indeed, she had
actually wept for the death of one enemy and the affliction of another.
Moreover, she seldom had contact with the boarders now.

The rather peculiar circumstances of Florrie's arrival almost cured
Hilda's self-consciousness, and she entered the house, in the wake of
the trunk, with a certain forgetful ease. There was Mr. Boutwood, still
dallying with Florrie and the trunk, in the narrow hall! The shocking
phenomenon of a boarder helping a domestic servant with her luggage had
been rendered possible only by a series of accidents. The front door
being left open on account of the weather, Mr. Boutwood had had a direct
view of the maiden, and the maiden had not been obliged to announce her
arrival officially by ringing a bell. Hence the other servants had not
had notice. And of the overseers of the house one was imprisoned in the
basement and the other two had been out betrothing themselves! In the
ordinary way the slightest unusualness in the hall would instantly
attract the attention of somebody in authority.

Mr. Boutwood was not immediately aware of Hilda. His attitude towards
Florrie was shocking to Hilda in a double sense; it shocked her as an
overseer, but it shocked her quite as much as a young woman newl