After forty-eight hours' residence in the new house, Gosling began to pluck up his courage and to dare the perils of the streets. He was beginning to have faith in his luck, to believe that the plague had passed away and left him untouched. And as day succeeded day he ventured further afield; he went in search of milk, eggs and vegetables, but he only found young nettles, which he brought home and helped to eat when they had been boiled over a wood fire. They were all glad to eat nettles, and were the better for them. Occasionally he met women on these excursions, and stayed to talk to them. Always they had the same tale to tell--their men were dead, and themselves dying of starvation. One day at the beginning of June he went as far as Petersham, and there at the door of a farmhouse he saw a fine, tall young woman. She was such a contrast to the women he usually met on his expeditions that he paused and regarded her with curiosity. "What do you want?" asked the young woman, suspiciously. "I suppose you 'aven't any milk or butter or eggs to sell?" asked Gosling. "Sell?" echoed the girl, contemptuously. "What 'ave you got to give us as is worth food?" "Well, money," replied Gosling. "Money!" came the echo again. "What's the good of money when there's nothing to buy with it? I wouldn't sell you eggs at a pound apiece." Gosling scratched his beard--it looked quite like a beard by this time. "Rum go, ain't it?" he asked, and smiled. His new acquaintance looked him up and down, and then smiled in return, "You're right," she said. "You're the first man I've seen since father died, a month back." "'Oo's livin' with you?" asked Gosling, pointing to the house. "Mother and sister, that's all." "'Ard work for you to get a livin', I suppose?" "So, so. We're used to farm-work. The trouble's to keep the other women off." "Ah!" replied Gosling reflectively, and the two looked at one another again. "You 'ungry?" asked the girl. "Not to speak of," replied Gosling. "But I'm fair pinin' for a change o' diet. Been livin' on tinned things for five weeks or more." "Come in and have an egg," said the girl. "Thank you," said Gosling, "I will, with pleasure." They grew friendly over that meal--two eggs and a glass of milk. He ate the eggs with butter, but there was no bread. It seemed that the young woman's mother and sister were at work on the farm, but that one of them had always to stay at home and keep guard. They discussed the great change that had come over England, and wondered what would be the end of it; and after a little time, Gosling began to look at the girl with a new expression in his pale blue eyes. "Ah! Hevrything's changed," he said. "Nothin' won't be the same any more, as far as we can see. There's no neighbours now, f'rinstance, and no talk of what's going on--or anythin'." The girl looked at him thoughtfully. "What we miss is some man to look after the place," she said. "We're robbed terrible."