borne; whatever temptation assailed him he would fight against it as
a brave and good Christian should fight. But Ascott?

Ascott's life was as yet an unanswered query. She could but leave it
in Omnipotent hands.

So she found her way home, asking it once or twice of civil
policemen, and going a little distance round--dare I make this
romantic confession about so sensible and practical a little
woman?--that she might walk once up Burton Street and down again. But
nobody knew the fact, and it did nobody any harm.

Meantime at No 15 the afternoon had passed heavily enough. Miss
Selina had gone to lie down; she always did of Sundays, and
Elizabeth, after making her comfortable, by the little attentions the
lady always required, had descended to the dreary wash house, which
had been appropriated to herself, under the name of a "private
kitchen," in the which, after all the cleanings and improvements she
could achieve, sat like Marius among the rains of Carthage, and
sighed for the tidy bright house place at Stowbury. Already, from her
brief experience, she had decided that London people were horrid
shams, because they did not in the least care to have their kitchens
comfortable. She wondered how she should ever exist in this one, and
might have carried her sad and sullen face up stairs, if Miss Leaf
had not come down stairs, and glancing about with that ever gentle
smile of hers, said kindly, "Well, it is not very pleasant, but you
have made the best of it, Elizabeth. We must all put up with
something, you know. Now, as my eyes are not very good to-day,
suppose you come up and read me a chapter."