It was the first signs of this inner ring that the Goslings discovered at Sudbury. 5 They came upon a little row of cottages, standing back a few yards from the road. All three women had been engaged in pushing their trolly up an ascent, and with heads down, and all their physical energies concentrated upon their task, they did not notice the startling difference between these cottages and other houses they had passed, until they stopped to take breath at the summit of the hill. Mrs Gosling had immediately seated herself upon the sloping pole of the trolly handle. She was breathing heavily and had her hands pressed to her sides. Millie leaned against the side of the trolly, her eyes still on the ground. But Blanche had thrown back her shoulders and opened her lungs, and she saw the banner of smoke that flew from the middle of the three chimney-stacks--smoke, in this wilderness, smoke the sign of human life! To Blanche it seemed the fulfilment of a great hope. She had begun to wonder if all the world were dead. "Oh!" she gasped. "Look!" They looked without eagerness, anticipating some familiar horror. "Ooh!" echoed Millie, when she, too, had recognized the harbinger. But Mrs Gosling did not raise her eyes high enough. "What?" she asked stupidly. "There's some one living in that cottage," said Blanche, and pointed upwards to the soaring pennant. Mrs Gosling's face brightened. "Well, to be sure," she said, "I wonder if they'd let me sit down and rest for a few minutes? And perhaps they might be willing to sell me a glass of milk. I'm sure I'd pay a good price for it." "We can see, anyway," replied Millie, and they roused themselves and pushed on eagerly. The cottage was not more than thirty yards away. Before they reached it, a woman came to the doorway, stared at them for a moment and then came down to the little wooden gate. She was a thick-set woman of fifty or so, with iron grey hair cut close to her head. She wore a tweed skirt which did not reach the tops of her heavily soled, high boots. She looked capable, energetic and muscular. And in her hand she carried about three feet of stout broomstick. She did not speak until the little procession halted before her gate, and then she pointed meaningly up the road with her broomstick and said: "Go on. You can't stop here." She spoke with the voice and inflection of an educated woman. Blanche paused in the act of setting down the trolly handle. Mrs Gosling and Millie stared in amazement; they had been prepared to weep on the neck of this human friend, found at last in the awful desert of Middlesex. "We only wanted to buy a little milk," stammered Blanche, no less astonished than her mother and sister. The big woman looked them over with something of pity and contempt. "I can see you're not dangerous," she sneered and crossed her great bare fore-arms over the top of the gate. "Only three poor feckless idiots going begging."