The sun was very warm; before she reached the end of the long road the sandy pathways were beginning to glare. There was the river and the little bridge and the first shop just beyond it, where her purchase was to be made. Its woodwork was very bright white; it had a seaside look. She stood still on the slight ascent of the bridge mopping her face and preparing to represent Mrs. Corrie in the shop. Scrambling up the shallow bank from the common came the yellow dog. “Oh, hooray—you duck,” she breathed, patting the warm stubbly head and listening to his breathless snortings. A piano-organ broke into loud music in the little street. It was not a mysterious little town, there was nothing of the village about it. The white framed windows held things you would see in a Regent Street confectioner’s; it was a special shop for the kind of people who lived here. Miriam felt for her three and six and asked for her pound of coffee creams with a bored air, wishing she knew the dog’s name so that she could claim him familiarly. She contented herself with telling him to lie down in an angry whisper repeatedly, as the creams were being weighed. He stood panting and gazing at her wagging his stump. “ ’Ullo, Bushy,” said the shopwoman languidly; the dog faced round panting more loudly. “There you are, Bush,” she said, as the scales balanced, and flung the dog a chocolate wafer which he caught with a snap. Miriam gazed vaguely at the unfamiliar spectacle, angrily feeling that the shopwoman was observing her. “You’re not going to take him through the town?” said the shopwoman severely.
“Oh, no,” said Miriam nervously.
“He’s the worst fighter in the parish; they never bring him into the town unless it’s the groom sometimes.”
“Thank you,” said Miriam, taking her bag of coffee creams. “Dogs are a nuisance, aren’t they?” she added, in an emphatically sympathetic tone, getting away through the swing door almost hating the yellow body that squeezed through at her side and stood eagerly facing towards the marketplace waiting for her movements.
She hurried up over the bridge calling to the dog without looking round, listening fearfully for sounds of conflict with a brown collie she had caught sight of standing with head high and ears pricked, twenty yards down the street. The piano-organ jingled angrily. The dog came thoughtfully trotting over the bridge and ambled off across the common—safe. He might have been killed, or killed another dog; how cruel dogs were, without knowing better. She looked to the common asking consolation for her beating heart. The bag of creams was safe and heavy in her hand, the dog had gone, the little town was behind, it had hurt her; it was spoiled; she would never like it. It had done nothing but remind her that she was a helpless dingy little governess. She toiled along, feeling dreadfully tired; the sounds of her boot soles on the firm, sand-powdered road mocked her, telling her she must go on. If she could be quite sure of finding a kind woman, not a hard-featured woman with black and grey hair, like the shopwoman, but kind, knowing and understanding everything, in a large print apron with her sleeves rolled up to the elbows, living in a large cottage with a family, who would look at her and smile a quiet short certain smile, as if she had been waiting for her, and take her in and let her help and stay there forever, she would put down the bag of coffee creams on the edge of the common and go straight across it to her; but there would not be a woman like that here; all that the women round here would think about her would be to wonder which of the
