I waited for the first tram that was going in my direction, and when it came up I signalled to it, but it did not stop—­it was full.

I waited for a second tram, but that was still more crowded.

I reproached myself for having come so far.  I told myself how ill-advised I had been in seeking for a nurse for my child at the farthest end of the city.  I reminded myself that I could not hope to visit her every day if my employment was to be in the West, as I had always thought it would be.  I asked myself if in all this vast London, with its myriads of homes, there had been no house nearer that could have sheltered my child.

Against all this I had to set something, or I think my very heart would have died there and then.  I set the thought of Ilford, on the edge of the country, with its green fields and its flowers.  I set the thought of Mrs. Oliver, who would love my child as tenderly as if she were her own little lost one.

I dare say it was all very weak and childish, but it is just when we are done and down, and do not know what we are doing, that Providence seems to be directing us, and it was so with me at that moment.

The trams being full I had concluded that Fate had set itself against my spending any of Isabel’s money, and had made up my mind to make a fierce fight over the last stage of my journey, when I saw that a little ahead of where I was standing the road divided into two branches at an acute angle, one branch going to the right and the other to the left.

Not all Emmerjane’s instructions about keeping “as straight as a’ arrow” sufficed to show me which of the two roads to take and I looked about for somebody to tell me.

It was then that I became aware of a shabby old four-wheeled cab which stood in the triangular space in front of the statue, and of the driver (an old man, in a long coachman’s coat, much worn and discoloured, and a dilapidated tall hat, very shiny in patches) looking at me while he took the nose-bag off his horse—­a bony old thing with its head hanging down.

I stepped up to him and asked my way, and he pointed it out to me—­to the right, over the bridge and through Stratford Market.

I asked how far it was to Ilford.

“Better nor two mile I call it,” he answered.

After that, being so tired in brain as well as body, I asked a foolish question—­how long it would take me to get there.

The old driver looked at me again, and said: 

“’Bout a ’our and a ’alf I should say by the looks of you—­and you carryin’ the biby.”

I dare say my face dropped sadly as I turned away, feeling very tired, yet determined to struggle through.  But hardly had I walked twenty paces when I heard the cab coming up behind and the old driver crying: 

“’Old on, missie.”

I stopped, and to my surprise he drew up by my side, got down from his box, opened the door of his cab and said: