in the same morning or evening train, on the way to or from work;
the faces of omnibus conductors grow familiar; we learn to know
perfectly well on what day of the week and at what hour the
well-known organ-grinder will make his appearance, and in what
street we shall meet the city clerk or the care-worn little daily
governess on their way to office or school. It so happened that
Brian Osmond, a young doctor who had not been very long settled in
the Bloomsbury regions, had an engagement which took him every
afternoon down Gower Street, and here many faces had grown familiar
to him. He invariably met the same sallow-faced postman, the same
nasal-voiced milkman, the same pompous-looking man with the bushy
whiskers and the shiny black bag, on his way home from the city.
But the only passenger in whom he took any interest was a certain
bright-faced little girl whom he generally met just before the
Montague Place crossing. He always called her his "little girl,"
though she was by no means little in the ordinary acceptation of
the word, being at least sixteen, and rather tall for her years.
But there was a sort of freshness and naivete and youthfulness
about her which made him use that adjective. She usually carried
a pile of books in a strap, so he conjectured that she must be
coming from school, and, ever since he had first seen her, she had
worn the same rough blue serge dress, and the same quaint little
fur hat. In other details, however, he could never tell in the
least how he should find her. She seemed to have a mood for every
day. Sometimes she would be in a great hurry and would almost run
past him; sometimes she would saunter along in the most
unconventional way, glancing from time to time at a book or a
paper; sometimes her eager face would look absolutely bewitching in
its brightness; sometimes scarcely less bewitching in a consuming
anxiety which seemed unnatural in one so young.