Blanche saw signs of life in the outbuildings and went to investigate, leaving Millie and her mother to guard the truck. She found three women and a girl of fourteen or so milking. For some minutes she stood watching them, the women, after one glance at her, proceeding with their work without paying her any further attention. But, at last, the eldest of the three rose from her stool with a sigh of relief, picked up her wooden bucket of milk, gave the cow a resounding slap on the side, and then, turning to Blanche, said, "Well, my gal, what's for you?" "Will you change two pints of milk for a small tin of tongue?" asked Blanche. It was the first time she had offered any of their precious tinned meats in exchange for other food, but she wanted milk for her mother, who had hardly eaten anything that day. The two other women and the girl looked round and regarded Blanche with the first signs of interest they had shown. "Tongue, eh?" said the older woman. "Where from did you get tongue, my gal?" "London," replied Blanche tersely. "When did you leave there?" asked the woman, and then Blanche was engaged in a series of searching questions respecting the country she had passed through. "You can have the milk if you've anything to put it in," said the woman at last, and Blanche went to fetch the tongue and the two bottles that they had had from Aunt May. The bottles had to be scalded, a precaution that had not occurred to Blanche, and one of the other women was sent to carry out the operation. "Well, your tale don't tell us much," said the woman of the farm, "but we always pass the news here, now. Where are you going to sleep to-night?" Blanche shrugged her shoulders. "You can sleep here in the outhouses, if you've a mind to," said the woman, "but I warn you we get a crowd. Silly Londoners like yourself for the most part, but we find a use for 'em somehow, though I'd give the lot for three labourers." She paused and twisted her mouth on one side reflectively. "Ah! well," she went on with a sigh, "no use grieving over them that's gone; all I was goin' to say was, if you sleep here you'd better keep an eye on what food you've got with you. My lot'll have it before you can say knife, if they get half a chance." "It isn't us girls, me and my sister," explained Blanche. "It's my mother. She's bad, I'm afraid. If she could sleep in your kitchen...? She wouldn't steal anything." After a short hesitation the woman consented. Yet neither the glory of being once more within the four walls of a house, nor the refreshment of the milk which she drank readily enough, seemed appreciably to rouse Mrs Gosling's spirits. The woman of the farm, a kindly enough creature, plied the old lady with questions, but received few and confused answers in reply. Mrs Gosling seemed dazed and stupid. "A touch of the sun," the farmer's widow thought. "The sun's been cruel strong the past week," she said, "but she'll be all right in a day or two, get her to shelter."