There they stood,
the two of them, in the lamplight. Passers-by stared at her, and gave
good-night to Harry. Her they hardly knew, she had become a stranger.
'They're too heavy for you, let me carry one,' she said.
'They begin to weigh a bit by the time you've gone a mile,' he answered.
'Let me carry the little one,' she insisted.
'Tha can ha'e it for a minute, if ter's a mind,' he said, handing over
the valise.
And thus they arrived in the streets of shops of the little ugly town on
top of the hill. How everybody stared at her; my word, how they stared!
And the cinema was just going in, and the queues were tailing down the
road to the corner. And everybody took full stock of her. 'Night, Harry!'
shouted the fellows, in an interested voice.
However, they arrived at her aunt's--a little sweet-shop in a side
street. They 'pinged' the door-bell, and her aunt came running forward
out of the kitchen.
'There you are, child! Dying for a cup of tea, I'm sure. How are you?'
Fanny's aunt kissed her, and it was all Fanny could do to refrain from
bursting into tears, she felt so low. Perhaps it was her tea she wanted.
'You've had a drag with that luggage,' said Fanny's aunt to Harry.
'Ay--I'm not sorry to put it down,' he said, looking at his hand which
was crushed and cramped by the bag handle.
Then he departed to see about Heather's greengrocery cart.
When Fanny sat at tea, her aunt, a grey-haired, fair-faced little woman,
looked at her with an admiring heart, feeling bitterly sore for her.
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