It will be a bit of a surprise to her." But while he was putting on the last brushful or two, a thought came to him which sent him hurrying into the house in quite a flurry.
"Mother!" he called up the stairs, "mother! we don't know when she's coming, Lizzie didn't say--and what's to prevent her coming to-day ?" Patience dropped her scrubbing-brush and sat down on the top stair, overcome with excitement and surprise.

"To-day! this very day! Oh dear! oh dear! how careless of Lizzie not to tell us! The poor child might come at any time, and nobody be there to meet her, and we can't write and ask, for she didn't give us any address to write to.
Lizzie did use to have some sense before she took up with that Harry Lang, but now--" Patience lapsed into silence because she could not find words which would sufficiently express her feelings.

She was tired and irritable too, and she never could endure uncertainty.
Thomas had been standing by all this while, thinking deeply.
"Well," he said at last, "it's my belief she'd send her off as soon as she could after she'd wrote the letter, for if Lizzie had a hard thing to do, she was one as couldn't stop to think much about it, or she'd never do it at all.

She's put London on the top of her letter, and the London train comes in at four-fifteen, and I'm thinking I'd better go and meet it, any way, and then, if the child don't come by it, I can tell Station-Master I'm expecting my little grandchild, but I don't know exactly when, and when she do come, will he keep her safe if I ain't there in time.

I can't think of nothing better than that." Patience rose briskly, with a look of relief on her face.