kindly smile and "I'm glad he's back, Lois."

Yet Joe Yare, fresh from two years in the penitentiary, was not
exactly the person whom society usually welcomes with open arms.
Lois had a vague suspicion of this, perhaps; for, as she hobbled
along the path, she added to her own assurance of his
"stiddiness" earnest explanations to Joel of how he had a place
in the Croft Street woollen-mills, and how Dr. Knowles had said
he was as ready a stoker as any in the furnace-rooms.

The sound of her weak, eager voice was silent presently, and
nothing broke the solitary cold of the night.



CHAPTER III.


The morning, when it came long after, came quiet and cool,--the
warm red dawn helplessly smothered under great waves of gray
cloud. Margret, looking out into the thick fog, lay down wearily
again, closing her eyes. What was the day to her?

Very slowly the night was driven back. An hour after, when she
lifted her head again, the stars were still glittering through
the foggy arch, like sparks of brassy blue, and hills and valleys
were one drifting, slow-heaving mass of ashy damp. Off in the
east a stifled red film groped through. It was another day
coming; she might as well get up, and live the rest of her life
out;--what else had she to do?