It was only just as the train was beginning to puff and pull itself together to start again that he saw Phyllis.

She was quite out of breath with running.
"Oh," she said, "I thought I'd missed you.

My bootlaces would keep coming down and I fell over them twice.

Here, take it." She thrust a warm, dampish letter into his hand as the train moved.
He leaned back in his corner and opened the letter.

This is what he read:-- "Dear Mr.We do not know your name.
Mother is ill and the doctor says to give her the things at the end of the letter, but she says she can't aford it, and to get mutton for us and she will have the broth.