‘I have baked a nice hot cake with currants in it, Kitty,’ she said persuasively, ’and you shall have your share, hot and buttered, if you will be patient and wait a little.’

‘She is a good little thing,’ I observed, as the child reluctantly withdrew to her dreary post, after a longing look at the table, while Miss Locke placed a rocking-chair with a faded green cushion by the fire, and opened the oven door to inspect the cake.  ’It is dull work for the little creature to be so much in the sick-room.  It is hardly a wholesome atmosphere for a child.’

Miss Locke shook her head as though she endorsed this opinion.

‘What am I to do?’ she returned sorrowfully.  ’Kitty is young, but she has to bear our burdens.  I spare her all I can; but when I am at my dressmaking Phoebe cannot be left alone, and she has learned to be quiet and handy, and can do all sorts of things for Phoebe.  I know it is not good for her living alone with us, but the Lord has ordered the child’s life as well as ours,’ she finished reverently.

‘We must see what can be done for Kitty,’ was my answer.  ’She can be free to play while I am with your sister.  I sent her out with her new skipping-rope this evening.  What brought her back so soon?’

‘It was the singing,’ returned Miss Locke, smiling.  ’The street door was just ajar, and Kitty crept in and curled herself up on the mat.  It sounded so beautiful, you see; for Kitty and I only hear singing at church, and it is not often I can get there, with Phoebe wanting me; so it did us both good, you may be sure of that.’

I could not but be pleased at this simple tribute of praise, but something else struck me more, the unobtrusive goodness and self-denial of Susan Locke.  What a life hers must be!  I hinted at this as gently as I could.

‘Ay, Phoebe has always been a care to me,’ she sighed.  ’She was never as strong and hearty as other girls, and she wanted her own way, and fretted when she could not get it.  Father spoiled her, and mother gave in to her more than she did to me; and when trouble came all along of Robert Owen, and he used her cruel, just flinging her aside when he saw some one he fancied more than Phoebe, and driving her mad with spite and jealousy, then she let herself go, as it were.  She was never religious, not to speak of, all the time she kept company with Robert, so when her hopes of him came to an end she had nothing to support her.  It needs plenty of faith to make us bear our troubles patiently.’

‘And then her health failed.’

’Yes; and mother died, and father followed her within six months, and Phoebe could not be with them, and she took on about that; she has had a deal of trouble, and that is why I cannot find it in my heart to be hard on her; she was that fond of Robert, though he was a worthless sort of fellow, that, as the saying is, she worshipped the ground he walked on.  Ah, Phoebe was bonnie-looking then, though she was never over-strong, and had not much colour; but he need not have called her a sickly ill-tempered wench when he threw her over and married Nancy.  It was a cruel way to serve a woman that loved him as Phoebe did.’