She entered the vast, dingy factory; the woollen dust, the clammy air of copperas were easier to breathe in; the cramped, sordid office, the work, mere trifles to laugh at; and she bent over the ledger with its hard lines in earnest good-will, through the slow creeping hours of the long day.

She noticed that the unfortunate chicken was making its heart glad over a piece of fresh earth covered with damp moss.

Dr.
Knowles stopped to look at it when he came, passing her with a surly nod.
"So your master's not forgotten you," he snarled, while the blind old hen cocked her one eye up at him.
Pike, the manager, had brought in some bills.
"Who's its master ?" he said, curiously, stopping by the door.
"Holmes,--he feeds it every morning." The Doctor drawled out the words with a covert sneer, watching the cold face bending over the desk, meantime.
Pike laughed.
"Bah! it's the first thing he ever fed, then, besides himself.

Chickens must lie nearer his heart than men." Knowles scowled at him; he had no fancy for Pike's scurrilous gossip.
The quiet face was unmoved.

When he heard the manager's foot on the ladder without, he tested it again.