All this friendliness was very precious to Janet.  She was conscious of the aid it gave her in the self-conquest which was the blessing she prayed for with every fresh morning.  The chief strength of her nature lay in her affection, which coloured all the rest of her mind:  it gave a personal sisterly tenderness to her acts of benevolence; it made her cling with tenacity to every object that had once stirred her kindly emotions.  Alas! it was unsatisfied, wounded affection that had made her trouble greater than she could bear.  And now there was no check to the full flow of that plenteous current in her nature—­no gnawing secret anguish—­no overhanging terror—­no inward shame.  Friendly faces beamed on her; she felt that friendly hearts were approving her, and wishing her well, and that mild sunshine of goodwill fell beneficently on her new hopes and efforts, as the clear shining after rain falls on the tender leaf-buds of spring, and wins them from promise to fulfilment.

And she needed these secondary helps, for her wrestling with her past self was not always easy.  The strong emotions from which the life of a human being receives a new bias, win their victory as the sea wins his:  though their advance may be sure, they will often, after a mightier wave than usual, seem to roll back so far as to lose all the ground they had made.  Janet showed the strong bent of her will by taking every outward precaution against the occurrence of a temptation.  Her mother was now her constant companion, having shut up her little dwelling and come to reside in Orchard Street; and Janet gave all dangerous keys into her keeping, entreating her to lock them away in some secret place.  Whenever the too well-known depression and craving threatened her, she would seek a refuge in what had always been her purest enjoyment—­in visiting one of her poor neighbours, in carrying some food or comfort to a sick-bed, in cheering with her smile some of the familiar dwellings up the dingy back-lanes.  But the great source of courage, the great help to perseverance, was the sense that she had a friend and teacher in Mr. Tryan:  she could confess her difficulties to him; she knew he prayed for her; she had always before her the prospect of soon seeing him, and hearing words of admonition and comfort, that came to her charged with a divine power such as she had never found in human words before.

So the time passed, till it was far on in May, nearly a month after her husband’s death, when, as she and her mother were seated peacefully at breakfast in the dining-room, looking through the open window at the old-fashioned garden, where the grass-plot was now whitened with apple-blossoms, a letter was brought in for Mrs. Raynor.

‘Why, there’s the Thurston post-mark on it,’ she said.  ’It must be about your aunt Anna.  Ah, so it is, poor thing! she’s been taken worse this last day or two, and has asked them to send for me.  That dropsy is carrying her off at last, I daresay.  Poor thing! it will be a happy release.  I must go, my dear—­she’s your father’s last sister—­though I am sorry to leave you.  However, perhaps I shall not have to stay more than a night or two.’