“Cheer up!  It will soon be going-home time.”

[Illustration:  “Cheer up.”]

“Will it?” asked the child, and his sobs ceased.

“Yes.  I felt like crying this morning.  But it’s better to be brave.”

A business man was hurrying along, but paused to watch the work of comforting.  His heart was heavy, too, but her words:  “It will soon be going-home time—­it’s better to be brave,” like a sweet chime, kept with him all the day.

As the girl re-entered the house a song was on her lips, and a tired woman turning a washing-machine next door caught it.  She looked round her—­there was such a heap of work to do—­and dinner to think of for husband and children.  No wonder there was a worried look on her face.

“Hope on! hope on!  Though long the road and drear.  Hope on! hope on!  The sunlit hours are near.”

[Illustration:  “Hope on.”]

It was Dorothy Cummins singing!  “Hope on!” The woman began to sing too.  “The sunlit hours are near!” The washer went faster.  The woman’s face caught a gleam from the coming sunlight.  “Hope on!  Hope on!” It would yet be possible to get all the clothes out before noon.

If she had looked into her neighbor’s back garden just then she would have seen what the singer did.  A little brown bird was vainly pecking away at a crust lying under a tree.  Then the singer came, with soft, quick steps, and broke the crust into crumbs.  The sunlit hour had come for the bird.

[Illustration:  “Broke the crust.”]

And it even came for Brother George at dinner time.  Joy bells did not always ring when he and Dorothy were in close quarters.  To-day his sister remarked, as she looked over his shoulder at some exercise papers in his hands:  “What a nice writer you are, George.  Father couldn’t write a bit better than that, I’m sure.”

“Don’t you make fun of a fellow.”

“I’m not.  I mean it.”

[Illustration:  “I mean it.”]

It is strange, but true, words of praise do not often come in our way.  The sunlight dazzled George just at first, but when he had grown familiar with it, he called out just before going off to school again:  “I say, Dorothy, don’t you go chopping that wood.  I’ll do it when I come back again.  Wood chopping isn’t in a girl’s line.”  He even shut the door so quietly that the mother at work at her machine did not know that he had gone—­the mother who had to work so many hours in order to make ends meet during the husband’s long illness.  Her face looked very sad as she bent over her work, but such a change came over it as the door opened and the little housekeeper came in, bearing a cup of tea and a thin slice of bread and butter, laid daintily on a little tray.

[Illustration:  “I’m not tired now.”]

“Why, Dorothy, what have you got there?”

“A cup of tea for you, mother, and you are to drink it, and to be sure to eat the bread and butter.  I saw how little dinner you ate.  I was watching you, and you did look so very tired and worn.”  “But I’m not tired now,” said the mother, “not a bit of it.  Why,” lifting up her face from the teacup, “your loving care has strengthened me already.”