She did not sleep, she did not even doze, but she must have been hypnotized by the clock’s big innocent face, because when she heard the knock at the door she was terribly startled. She ran along the narrow hall to the front door, and as she ran she kept thinking that it was too soon; she was not quite ready for the sofa yet. But when she opened the door and saw the deliveryman actually standing there, she said, “Did you bring the sofa? I hope they sent the right one. I hope nobody has made a mistake.” The man looked at her in surprise and said, “I just want to see how wide the hall is.” He peered in past her and said, “We’ll manage all right.” And then he went down the tiled path to the miniature iron gate, which he had left standing open, and around to the back of the van, where two other men had opened the doors and were waiting for him without enthusiasm. Mrs. Bagot flew after him and around to the back of the van and looked in. Yes, it was her sofa.

The big man who had come to the door had already climbed into the van and was beginning to move the sofa out. She saw that he was grinning cheerfully at her, and she turned away in confusion and hurried back to stand at her front door. She felt she had made a fool of herself and shown herself to have no dignity, and she thought the men must be laughing at her for her eagerness. She made up her mind to look severely at the big man when he came into the house.

The sofa began to emerge, timidly, from the van, and as it did, Lily and Margaret came into view, running up the street. Some other children from the houses around appeared and stood watching curiously. Lily and Margaret were quick to disassociate themselves from these unfortunate children who were not getting a new sofa, and they raced up the tiled path and stood beside their mother at the front door. She looked so serious and worried that they became serious, too, and worried. Getting a new sofa was not the simple matter they had imagined. The sofa was not just going to float into the house and take its place in the front sitting room. There might be difficulties. The sofa was all the way out of the van now, and it looked huge and helpless, high and dry and stranded on the shoulders of two of the men, who did not seem to enjoy carrying it. “The legs on it are very small,” Margaret said.

They were all afraid the men would drop the sofa and break its legs.