ut up her little dwelling and come to reside
in Orchard Street; and Janet gave all dangerous keys into her keeping,
entreating her to lock them away in some secret place. Whenever the too
well-known depression and craving threatened her, she would seek a refuge
in what had always been her purest enjoyment--in visiting one of her poor
neighbours, in carrying some food or comfort to a sick-bed, in cheering
with her smile some of the familiar dwellings up the dingy back-lanes.
But the great source of courage, the great help to perseverance, was the
sense that she had a friend and teacher in Mr. Tryan: she could confess
her difficulties to him; she knew he prayed for her; she had always
before her the prospect of soon seeing him, and hearing words of
admonition and comfort, that came to her charged with a divine power such
as she had never found in human words before.

So the time passed, till it was far on in May, nearly a month after her
husband's death, when, as she and her mother were seated peacefully at
breakfast in the dining-room, looking through the open window at the
old-fashioned garden, where the grass-plot was now whitened with
apple-blossoms, a letter was brought in for Mrs. Raynor.

'Why, there's the Thurston post-mark on it,' she said. 'It must be about
your aunt Anna. Ah, so it is, poor thing! she's been taken worse this
last day or two, and has asked them to send for me. That dropsy is
carrying her off at last, I daresay. Poor thing! it will be a happy
release. I must go, my dear--she's your father's last sister--though I am
sorry to leave you. However, perhaps I shall not have to stay more than a
night or two.'

Janet looked distressed as she said, 'Yes, you must go, mother. But I
don't know what I shall do without you. I think I shall run in to Mrs.
Pettifer, and ask her to come and stay with me while you're away. I'm
sure she will.'

At twelve o'clock, Janet, having seen her mother in the coach that was to
carry her to Thurston, called, on her way back, at Mrs. Pettifer's, but
found, to her great disappointment, that her old friend was gone out for
the day. So she wrote on a leaf of her pocket-book an urgent request that
Mrs. Pettifer would come and stay with her while her mother was away;
and, desiring the servant-girl to give it to her mistress as soon as she
came home, walked on to the Vicarage to sit with Mrs. Crewe, thinking to
relieve in this way the feeling of desolateness and undefined fear t