In default of the actually destitute and starving, whom she would much have preferred, Mrs.Hilbery was forced to acknowledge her claims, for though in comfortable circumstances, she was extremely dull, unattractive, connected in some oblique fashion with literature, and had been touched to the verge of tears, on one occasion, by an afternoon call.
It happened that Mrs.Hilbery had an engagement elsewhere, so that the task of taking the flowers to the Cromwell Road fell upon Katharine.

She took her letter to Cassandra with her, meaning to post it in the first pillar-box she came to.

When, however, she was fairly out of doors, and constantly invited by pillar-boxes and post-offices to slip her envelope down their scarlet throats, she forbore.

She made absurd excuses, as that she did not wish to cross the road, or that she was certain to pass another post-office in a more central position a little farther on.

The longer she held the letter in her hand, however, the more persistently certain questions pressed upon her, as if from a collection of voices in the air.