are what that meant. Mrs.
Candy was, of course, worse than useless; Stephen the potman had more
than his work set in looking after her. Whilst Miss Lant and Jane were
straining their wits on the hardest of all problems--to find a means of
livelihood for one whom society pronounced utterly superfluous,
Pennyloaf most unexpectedly solved the question by her own effort.
Somewhere near the Meat Market, one night, she encountered an
acquaintance, a woman of not much more than her own age, who had
recently become a widow, and was supporting herself (as well as four
little ones) by keeping a stall at which she sold children's secondhand
clothing; her difficulty was to dispose of her children whilst she was
doing business at night. Pennyloaf explained her own position, and with
the result that her acquaintance, by name Mrs. Todd, proposed a
partnership. Why shouldn't they share a room, work together with the
needle in patching and making, and by Pennyloaf's staying at home each
evening keep the tribe of youngsters out of danger? This project was
carried out; the two brought their furniture together into a garret,
and it seemed probable that they would succeed in keeping themselves
alive.

But before this settlement was effected Jane's own prospects had
undergone a change of some importance. For a fortnight nothing was
heard of Joseph Snowdon in Hanover Street; then there came a letter
from him; it bore a Liverpool postmark, but was headed with no address.
Joseph wrote that the business to which he had alluded was already
summoning him from England; he regretted that there had not even been
time for him to say farewell to his daughter. However, he would write
to her occasionally during his absence, and hoped to hear from her. The
allowance of two pounds a week would be duly paid by an agent, and on
receiving it each Saturday she was to forward an acknowledgment to 'Mr.
H. Jones,' at certain reading-rooms in the City. Let her in the
meantime be a good girl, remain with her excellent friend Mrs. Byass,
and repose absolute confidence in her affectionate father--J. S.

That same morning there came also a letter from Liverpool to Mrs.
Joseph Snowdon, a letter which ran thus:

'Clem, old girl, I regret very much that affairs of pressing importance
call me away from my happy home. It is especially distressing that this
occurs just at the time when we were on the point of taking our house,
in which we hoped to spend the rest of cur l