come hout right some day; and I’ve no time to be doin’ the Lord’s vork bin carryin’ the burden hon my shoulders, hif they are broad.  ’Ere’s the children; now sit right down wth hus, and velcome.  Since we’re neighbors we’ll be neighborly and friendly like; and before yer know hit, yer’ll be snug and comfortable hin your hown rooms, and yer can be jist as ’appy bin ’em has hever yer vas him yer life.  Bein’ poor and ’aving to vork hain’t the vorst troubles in the vorld.”

The good woman’s stout, cheery spirit and homely faith were just the tonics that Mildred needed, and they were all the more effective because combined with the exhilarating tea and wholesome food.  Therefore instead of a weary and depressing day, in which body and spirit acted and reacted on each other until the evening brought shadows deeper than the night, her courage and cheerfulness grew with the hours of sustained and healthful toil, and when her father appeared at six o’clock her smile warmed his heart.  At the cost of no slight effort he had so reduced his doses of morphia that neither she nor any one could have detected anything unnatural in his manner.  He praised their work unstintedly, and thanked Mrs. Wheaton for her kindness with such warm Southern frankness that her eyes grew moist with gratification.  Indeed the rooms had grown so clean and wholesome that Mr. Jocelyn said that they looked homelike already.  Mrs. Wheaton assured Mildred that if she would be content, she could be made quite comfortable on a lounge in her large living-room, and the young girl won her heart completely by saying that she would rather stay with her than go to the Fifth Avenue Hotel.  Her words were sincere, for in accordance with her nature her heart was already drawn toward the place which gave even promise of a home, and the hearty kindness received there made her shrink from the strange, indifferent world without.

Her father asked her to resume her travelling dress, and then by a street-car they soon reached a quiet restaurant near Central Park, from which the outlook was upon trees and shrubbery.  The people of New York are singularly fortunate in their ability to reach, at slight expense of money and time, many places where the air is pure, and the sense of beauty can find abundant gratification.  Mildred felt that only extreme poverty could rob them in summer of many simple yet genuine pleasures.  When, after their frugal supper, she and her father strolled through a path winding around a miniature lake on which swans were floating, she believed that one of her chief fears might be unfounded.  Her love of beauty need not be stifled, since there was so much, even in the crowded town, which could be seen without cost.