Her children, surveying her blankly,
found speech difficult. With some murmured words,
after a little pause, they bestowed a perfunctory kiss
upon her unresponsive cheek, and filed out into the rain.
Mrs. Dabney watched them put up their umbrella, and move off
Strandward beneath it. She continued to look for a long time,
in an aimless, ruminating way, at the dismal prospect revealed
by the window and the glass of the door. The premature
night was closing in miserably, with increasing rain,
and a doleful whistle of rising wind round the corner.
At last she shut up the unconsidered cash-book, lighted
another gas-jet, and striding to the door, rapped sharply
on the glass.
"Bring everything in!" she called to the boy, and helped
out his apprehension by a comprehensive gesture.
Later, when he had completed his task, and one of the two
narrow outlets from the shop in front was satisfactorily
blocked with the wares from without, and all the floor
about reeked with the grimy drippings of the oilskins,
Mrs. Dabney summoned him to the desk in the rear.
"I think you may go home now," she said to him, with the
laconic abruptness to which he was so well accustomed.
"You have a home, haven't you?"
Remembering the exhaustive enquiries which the Mission people
had made about him and his belongings, as a preliminary
to his getting this job, he could not but be surprised at
the mistress's question.
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