She appeared excited and chatted incessantly while the hair-dressing continued, and Blanche restored the remains of their meal to the trolly. With some difficulty they succeeded in getting Mrs Gosling back into her carriage. She had taken no notice of the procession, but as they were starting again she awoke from her abstraction to ask: "When d'you expect we'll be 'ome, Blanche? I've been thinkin' about them curtains in the drawin'-room...." "We'll be home in an hour or two, now," Blanche said, reassuringly. She did not know what a struggle awaited them before they should top the hill at Handy Cross. Mrs Isaacson had forsaken her place at the pole. "I shall be able to push more strongly behind," she had said, but despite the theoretical gain in mechanical advantage obtained by the new arrangement, the hill seemed never-ending. They had to rest continually, and always they looked with increasing irritation at the quiet figure in the trolly, chief cause of their distress. "I believe she could walk all right," Millie broke out at last. "If it was for a little way, it would help," commented Mrs Isaacson. But when Blanche put the proposition to her mother, Mrs Gosling seemed unable to comprehend it, and pity influenced them to renew the struggle. So they toiled on with growing impatience until they reached level ground again; and presently, looking down over the long slope of the valley, saw, two miles and a half away, the spire of Marlow Church. They rested under a hedge for a time, and when they started again Millie followed her sister's example and discarded her hat. Blanche, with a certain courage of opinion, had left hers under the walls of Wycombe Abbey, but Millie's hat found a place in the trolly. The ease of the long descent permitted a renewal of conversation, and Mrs Isaacson and Millie talked in undertones as they made their way down towards Marlow. Blanche took little notice of them; she was struggling perplexedly with the problems of life. Mrs Gosling's presence was negligible. "That was a very handsome fellow in the carriage," remarked Mrs Isaacson suddenly, "I think you do well not to go near that place again." Her fine eyes fixedly regarded the broad, rusty back of Mrs Gosling and the broken ribs of her umbrella. Millie simpered. "Oh! I should be safe enough. His wife'd see to that." "She was not his wife," returned Mrs Isaacson. "Men would not marry now that they are so few." "Well! there's a thing to say!" exclaimed Millie on a note of expostulation, interested nevertheless.