Lottie eventually returned home with makings of supper and other necessaries for the house. She had been pursuded to try a new brand of soap flake for the washing, 'the best flakes for the whitest whites ever' or so the box claimed. She had not been delayed by participating in street gossip, after all her family was the cause of the juicest gossip on Osway Street in forever. Lottie herself had been damned by her own action or inaction, forced to run the gauntlet of knowing stares while no one actually said anything to her.

Closing the front door, she soothed her soul by humming a gentle tune. Let them chatter... Was it a long forgotten church hymn, one of her father's old sea shanties, or music hall ditty? Lottie didn't know but it calmed her. She pulled the shawl roughly off her head, letting the fabric fall about her shoulders, and stepped into the kitchen. The sight of her daughter in law sobbing into her tea killed the song dead. Lottie went into instant mothering mode.

It didn't matter that her son had been a cod-brained clot and run off and gotten married on a whim without asking her first. Lottie and Bill had been young too once. Not to mention, the clucking neighbours; everyone of them had their own deep shames. They just hadn't been splashed on page 12 of the gazette. At least Joe had picked a decent girl. Clean, decent, honest, friendly, and pretty too. Many men did a lot worse. These two didn't deserve the scorn the town was heaping on them, Pearl in particular.

"Oh no! What's wrong, dear? What's happened?" Lottie hurried to join her.