Sunday was stiflingly¹ hot. At Sloane Street the roof of every Putney omnibus was already laden² with passengers, and Richard on his way to Carteret Street to make the acquaintance of Laura's married sister, Milly Powell, her husband and young child, was forced at last to be content with a seat inside. The public houses were just closing for the afternoon, and the footpaths³ full of holiday-makers, with here and there a girl or a middle-aged⁴ man carrying a Bible. No vehicles were abroad except the omnibuses and an occasional hired carriage which passed by with a nonchalant, lazy air.  
At the Redcliffe Arms there got in a little family party consisting of a stout⁵, seemingly prosperous man, gruffly good-humoured, his wife, and a boy of about three years, whose puffy face was disfigured by large spectacles.
 
"Sit here, Milly, out of the sun," the man said curtly⁶.
 
Richard looked up at the sound of the name. The woman's likeness⁷ to Laura was unmistakable; beyond doubt she must be the sister of his betrothed⁸. He examined her curiously¹⁰. She was perhaps slightly under thirty, of a good height and well set, with a large head and a large, plain face. Her movements were clumsy. She appeared to be just upon the line which divides the matron from the young mother. In both her features and her attire¹¹ there were faint reminders¹² of girlish grace, or at least of the charm of the shy wife who nurses her first-born. Her complexion¹³ was clear and fresh, her ears small and delicately pink, her eyes cool grey. But one did not notice these beauties without careful inspection¹⁴, while the heavy jaws¹⁵, the lax eyelids¹⁶, the flattened¹⁷ nose whose tilt¹⁸ unpleasantly revealed the nostrils¹⁹, were obvious and repellent. She wore a black gown, which fitted badly, imparting an ungainliness probably foreign to her proper figure. Her broad hat of black straw, trimmed with poppies and corn-flowers, was strikingly modish²⁰, and the veil, running at an angle from the extremity²¹ of the brim down to her chin, gave to her face a cloistered²² quality which had its own seductiveness. Her small hands were neatly²³ gloved, and held a cheap, effective parasol. The woman's normal expression was one of cow-like vacancy²⁴, but now and then her eyes would light up as she spoke²⁵ to the child, gently restraining it, reassuring²⁶ it, rallying it with simple banter²⁷. Sh............