ade
herself ill with pickled salmon. However it may have been, there was not
an acquaintance of Janet's, in Milby, that did not offer her civilities
in the early days of her widowhood. Even the severe Mrs. Phipps was not
an exception; for heaven knows what would become of our sociality if we
never visited people we speak ill of: we should live, like Egyptian
hermits, in crowded solitude.

Perhaps the attentions most grateful to Janet were those of her old
friend Mrs. Crewe, whose attachment to her favourite proved quite too
strong for any resentment she might be supposed to feel on the score of
Mr. Tryan. The little deaf old lady couldn't do without her accustomed
visitor, whom she had seen grow up from child to woman, always so willing
to chat with her and tell her all the news, though she _was_ deaf; while
other people thought it tiresome to shout in her ear, and irritated her
by recommending ear-trumpets of various construction.

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 sh