CHAPTER SIXTEENHilary caught the two o’clock train to Ledlington. She got into a carriage with a pair of lovers, a pretty girl, and a woman with nine parcels. At least there ought to have been nine parcels, but it presently appeared that there were only eight. As the train had now started, it wasn’t possible to do anything about it except rummage along the seats and under the seats in a vague, unhappy manner, apologizing profusely the while. Hilary helped in the search, the pretty girl read a sixpenny novelette, and the lovers held hands.
The owner of the lost parcel was a fat, worried woman with a flow of quite extraordinarily disconnected talk.
“I don’t know where I could have left it I’m sure, unless it was at Perry’s. Johnny’s socks it’ll be—two good pairs. Oh dear me—gone down the d
