Juley sighed deeply, as she went to light the gas and draw down the parlour blinds. But she looked happier. For after all, Joanna had promised to come on Wednesday night; and Joanna was not to know that the meeting in the tiny vestry of St. Saviour’s (the Low and very evangelical English Church to which Juley now went) had been specially arranged for her spiritual benefit by dear Eva Gedge. If Joanna had known, she would have been angry, and nothing would have made her yield. Was it perhaps a little unfair? As the mother swept the table carefully clear of crumbs, and strewed them outside on the window-sill for sparrows, an expression of shame did strive for a moment with the satisfied craft in her face. But it was only for a moment. The deceit, she reminded herself, if deceit there were, was for her precious child’s eternal welfare. Besides, this little gathering of one or two together, with Joanna in their midst was dear Eva’s idea. And it was dear Eva’s calling to deal with young people. Why else was she at the head of Elmbank Training College for deaconesses?

Joanna, in the pantry, rolled back her sleeves, turned on the hot water, and set herself the unnecessary task of washing up. The dishes might quite as well have been left for the housemaid whose day out it was. But if Juley saw them she was sure to slink in later and do them herself. It was a provoking piece of knowledge, and the daughter, as she rinsed the cups and saucers, stared tensely out between the bars of the pantry window at the familiar, darkening slope of the back-green. There at the top was the wall along which she had so often raced; and in the angle of the wall was a disused ashpit, which at eight years old it had been her dream to turn into a little house for herself and Cousin Gerald. True she had taken no practical steps towards making it habitable, but the picture had so persisted in her mind that for many months she had not been able to pass a piece of coal in the street, or a stray potato, without picking it up. At once she had seen herself in her tiny house, bending over the fire, and cooking the loved one’s supper, while he praised her for her thrift.