It was June weather in the heart of Surrey—that still June weather which is the essence of an English summer. The lanes were sweet with dog-roses; the vines on Martha's cottage home were already covered with many small bunches of quaint green fruit The air was soft and full of perfume; the tiny garden was ablaze with old-fashioned flowers.
Martha's mother was at home—a tall, frail woman, aged prematurely by poverty and the stress of early motherhood. She received me, wondering; but, when I explained my errand, she burst into sudden tears. I do not know whether grief or anger held the uppermost place in her heart; certainly it never occurred to her that she was to blame for sending her girl, unprepared, into a world of danger and temptation.
She could give me no news of her daughter—there was no news to give. Martha had never come home; her mother evidently did not expect her to do so. She had stepped over the threshold of 127 Underwood Terrace, and had disappeared into that outside world which, to such as she, shows little of mercy, and even less of sympathy and comprehension.
Her mother hardly desires to see her again; and I—though I do not forget her—I recall her only as a pathetic memory which, each year, grows less and less distinct.
