The Time of Roses

It was on a summer''s evening early in the month of August that the little Mummy was once again seen on the platform at Dawlish.She looked now very much like she did when we saw her of yore-slightly broadened, it is true, by the added years, but she still wore somewhat rusty widow''s black, and her face still had that half-anxious, half-comical expression, which made people turn to look at her with something between a smile and a sigh. She was commonplace and plain, and yet in one sense she was neither commonplace nor plain. She had a character, and that character had developed during the last few years, and rather for the better.