At last the hysterical passion had exhausted itself, and she fell back on the pillow; but her throat was still agitated by piteous after-sobs, such as shake a little child even when it has found a refuge from its alarms on its mother's lap.
Now Janet was getting quieter, Mrs.Pettifer determined to go down and make a cup of tea, the first thing a kind old woman thinks of as a solace and restorative under all calamities.

Happily there was no danger of awaking her servant, a heavy girl of sixteen, who was snoring blissfully in the attic, and might be kept ignorant of the way in which Mrs.
Dempster had come in.

So Mrs.Pettifer busied herself with rousing the kitchen fire, which was kept in under a huge 'raker'-- a possibility by which the coal of the midland counties atones for all its slowness and white ashes.
When she carried up the tea, Janet was lying quite still; the spasmodic agitation had ceased, and she seemed lost in thought; her eyes were fixed vacantly on the rushlight shade, and all the lines of sorrow were deepened in her face.
'Now, my dear,' said Mrs.Pettifer, 'let me persuade you to drink a cup of tea; you'll find it warm you and soothe you very much.

Why, dear heart, your feet are like ice still.

Now, do drink this tea, and I'll wrap 'em up in flannel, and then they'll get warm.' Janet turned her dark eyes on her old friend and stretched out her arms.
She was too much oppressed to say anything; her suffering lay like a heavy weight on her power of speech; but she wanted to kiss the good kind woman.