Jessie had sprung to her feet with excitement.  “I think it is perfectly lovely,” she cried, “perfectly lovely!  Shall we begin next Sunday?  Oh, do, please! and may I go down and tell Charlie?  He will be so glad.  Thank you ever and ever so much,” and putting up her hands she drew Miss Patch’s thin face down to her own and kissed it warmly.

Charlie was as delighted as Jessie, and the prospect of going up to Miss Patch’s room for an hour or so filled him with joyful excitement.  Mrs. Lang was pleased, too.  Anything that gave Charlie pleasure was sure to give her pleasure, and she was thankful for any means of teaching him and giving him new interests.

No one told Harry Lang about it, for he took no interest in anything they did, and they knew too well that his crooked temper would find delight in putting a stop to any little scheme they made.  Tom Salter knew, though, for having met Mrs. Lang one day struggling up the stairs with Charlie in her arms, wrapped in blankets, he insisted on carrying him up for her, every time he went, after that, and when he was asked to stay, he did stay, and listened to Miss Patch reading, and joined in the hymns, and after the first time he came quite often.

Jessie was delighted, she liked Tom Salter, for though he spoke but little, he had often done her a kindness, helping her carry a heavy scuttle of coal up the stairs, or a pail of water; and many a time, of a Saturday night, he cleaned several pairs of the lodgers’ boots for her in readiness for Sunday; and many other kindly acts he had done, that meant much to the little over-burthened worker, for Jessie’s life was a hard one in those days.

Miss Patch took care of her own room, and required no attention, but there were two lodgers in the front rooms on each landing, and all required meals cooked and carried to their rooms mornings and evenings, their rooms swept and dusted, their boots cleaned, and a hundred little attentions, and to Jessie it seemed as though she spent most of her life on the stairs, on her way up or down, generally carrying heavy trays or a load of some sort.

Then there were the beds to help to make, windows to clean, rooms and stairs to sweep, and numberless other duties.  Fortunately, Jessie liked housework, and Mrs. Dawson might well have been proud of her pupil, could she have seen the difference that by degrees crept over the look of the house, both inside and out, as time went on.

The windows were kept bright now, and the sills whitened; the doorsteps, which used to be so dirty and neglected, were now kept swept and whitened, too; and the lodgers appreciated the change, and said so more than once.

So the days and weeks passed by, and the weeks became months, and soon the months had become a whole year.  Jessie could not believe it when Charlie first drew her attention to the fact.  A whole year!

What could have become of poor granny and granp all this time!  She wondered if they ever wept and wept, and longed for her as she did for them.  Sometimes, when the wind howled, or some one played sad music in the streets, she felt as though her heart would break with its weight of sad longing.