Summary

It is Spring in 1910, and Rose is on a bus, headed to meet her cousins Sara and Maggie. She reflects upon meeting Maggie in a shop, who had invited her to lunch; she feels she barely knows her cousins now she is an adult, in part because they had lived abroad (after the death of their parents). The perspective shifts to Hyams Place, the street where Sara and Maggie live; it is a bustling working-class area, and a man is loudly collecting iron with a barrow. Sara is at home playing the piano, and notices Maggie setting the table for three places. She had forgotten that Rose was coming, and begins singing about her red hair when she remembers. Below them, Rose enters the building.

They begin to lunch, and talk of their memories of each other as children. Rose once again feels the...