The horse stopped of its own accord at the shop opposite the Post Office, but was urged on again by its driver. “I’ll run you on to your own spot, if you like, missis,” he offered, breaking off a cheerful recital of all the casualties he had ever seen, and which had ended badly in every instance. Mrs. Clapham, however, would not hear of taking him out of his way, and was presently on the ground, watched, as she noticed with some amusement, by alarmed-looking faces at the Post Office window. She nodded and smiled at the faces to show that nothing was wrong, whereupon they vanished with one accord, as though pulled by a taut string. It was kind of them, she thought, to seem so troubled on her account, and then forgot them again as she turned her attention to getting home. She was shaken, of course, and she walked lame, but she was glad to find she could get along. Her chief trouble, indeed, was that she felt sadly old, disheartened and somehow belittled by the butcher’s joking speech. Then, too, she was still fretting over the loss of the key, and wishing that she had been able to fight its battle with Mrs. Bell. Even the feel of it in her hand would have helped to sustain her diminishing courage. At all events it would have been a link with the house that now seemed so hopelessly left behind. But her spirits rose again when she found herself at the foot of her own street, opposite Mr. Baines’s office and close to her own home. She would be all right in the morning after a night’s rest, and when she awoke in the morning the dream would be still true. That was the important thing, after all, the great truth and the great fact. It was absurd to feel as if the loss of the key might possibly spoil her luck. Even if she lost the key every day of the week, it could not alter the fact that she had got the house. Mrs. Tanner, she saw, was out in the street as she came up, and at sight of the birdlike figure her spirits rose even higher. Chuckling, she thought of all the wonderful things she would have to tell, hurrying along towards her as fast as her knee would allow. Mrs. James also came out as she looked, and joined Mrs. Tanner; and then, as if worked by a spring, Mrs. Airey and Mrs. Dunn. She limped faster than ever when she saw the four, feeling like some successful explorer returning to safety and kind friends.