Number Nineteen was!
From the desolate servant-of-all-work at her first place from the
Foundling, to the half-starved German in the attics, every inmate of
the house seemed to have nothing but the bitter bread of affliction to
eat--nothing but the salt waters of despair to drink.

And now began another epoch in the Lawson history, which shed a sad
but most beautiful light over the fading day of that young life.

A girl of about fourteen--she might have been a year or so
younger--was once sent from one of the stationer's shops to conclude
some bargain with the sick paper-cutter. I saw her slender figure
bound up the desolate steps with the light tread of youth, as if she
had been a divine being entering the home of human sorrow. She was one
of those saintly children who are sometimes seen blooming like white
roses, unstained by time or by contact. Her hair hung down her neck in
long, loose curls, among which the sunlight seemed to have fairly lost
itself, they were so golden bright; her eyes were large, and of that
deep, dark gray which is so much more beautiful, because so much more
intellectual, than any other colour eyes can take; her lips were fresh
and youthful; and her figure had all that girlish grace of fourteen
which combines the unconscious innocence of the child with the
exquisite modesty of the maiden. She soon became the daily visitor of
the Lawsons--pupil to Herbert.

The paper-cutting was not wholly laid aside though; in the early
morning, and in the evening, and often late into the night, the thin,
wan fingers were busy about their task; but the middle of the day was
snatched like an hour of sleep in the midst of pain--garnered up like
a fountain of sweet waters in the wilderness; for then it was that
little Jessie came for her Latin lesson, which she used to learn so
well, and take such pleasure in, and be doubly diligent about, because
poor Herbert Lawson was ill, and vexation would do him harm. Does it
seem strange that a stationer's daughter should be so lovely, and
should learn Latin? And there those two children used to sit for three
dear hours of the day; she, leaning over her book, her sweet young
face bent on her task with a look of earnest intellectuality in it,
that made her like some sainted maid of olden time; and he watching
her every movement, and listening to every syllable, with a rapt
interest such as only very early youth can feel. How happy he used to
look! How his face would lighte