She was very comfortably settled in her corner, with her back to the engine to avoid smuts and the magazine presented by her niece laid face downwards on the seat beside her. She gazed with amiable interest at the family parties which came and went, hurrying into sight and then hurrying on again. Miss Silver’s mind, incurably Victorian, found an apt quotation: “Ships that pass in the night — ” Only of course it wasn’t the night, but ten o’clock of a sunny July morning. Not that that really mattered, because poetry was not intended to be taken in too literal a sense. “Ships that pass in the night and, passing, speak one another. Only a voice and a call, then darkness again and the silence.” Symbolical of course. She hoped she had the words quite right. Dear me — what a crowd! Everyone going away on their holidays. She herself had greatly enjoyed her fortnight at Whitestones with Ethel and the children.
