I shall have to be off; good-bye!' She stepped to the door.
'Miss Snowdon!' Jane turned, and after an instant of mock severity, broke into a laugh which seemed to fill the wretched den with sunlight.

Words, too, she found; words of soothing influence such as leap from the heart to the tongue in spite of the heavy thoughts that try to check them.

Pennyloaf was learning to depend upon these words for strength in her desolation.
They did not excite her to much hopefulness, but there was a sustaining power in their sweet sincerity which made all the difference between despair tending to evil and the sigh of renewed effort.

'I don't care,' Pennyloaf had got into the habit of thinking, after her friend's departure, 'I won't give up as long as she looks in now and then.' Out from the swarm of babies Jane hurried homewards.

She had a reason for wishing to be back in good time to-night; it was Wednesday, and on Wednesday evening there was wont to come a visitor, who sat for a couple of hours in her grandfather's room and talked, talked--the most interesting talk Jane had ever heard or could imagine.