up to her room humming a song of
contentment.

Had she, then, wholly outgrown the bitter experiences of her childhood?
Had the cruelty which tortured her during the years when the soul is
being fashioned left upon her no brand of slavish vice, nor the
baseness of those early associations affected her with any irremovable
taint? As far as human observation could probe her, Jane Snowdon had no
spot of uncleanness in her being; she had been rescued while it was yet
time, and the subsequent period of fostering had enabled features of
her character, which no one could have discerned in the helpless child,
to expand with singular richness. Two effects of the time of her
bondage were, however, clearly to be distinguished. Though nature had
endowed her with a good intelligence, she could only with extreme
labour acquire that elementary book-knowledge which vulgar children get
easily enough; it seemed as if the bodily overstrain at a critical
period of life had affected her memory, and her power of mental
application generally. In spite of ceaseless endeavour, she could not
yet spell words of the least difficulty; she could not do the easiest
sums with accuracy; geographical names were her despair. The second
point in which she had suffered harm was of more serious nature. She
was subject to fits of hysteria, preceded and followed by the most
painful collapse of that buoyant courage which was her supreme charm
and the source of her influence. Without warning, an inexplicable
terror would fall upon her; like the weakest child, she craved
protection from a dread inspired solely by her imagination, and solace
for an anguish of wretchedness to which she could give no form in
words. Happily this illness afflicted her only at long intervals, and
her steadily improving health gave warrant for hoping that in time it
would altogether pass away.

Whenever an opportunity had offered for struggling successfully with
some form of evil--were it poor Pennyloaf's dangerous despair, or the
very human difficulties between Bessie and her husband--Jane lived at
her highest reach of spiritual joy. For all that there was a
disappointment on her mind, she felt this joy to-night, and went about
her pursuits in happy self-absorption. So it befell that she did not
hear a knock at the house-door. Mrs. Byass answered it, and not knowing
that Mr. Snowdon was from home, bade his usual visitor go upstairs. The
visitor did so, and announced his presence at t