k cellars where she went that He had not borne,--not one. Nor was
there the least pleasure came to her or the others, not even a cheerful
fire, or kind words, or a warm, hearty laugh, that she did not know He
sent it and was glad to do it. She knew that well! So it was that He
took part in her humble daily life, and became more real to her day by
day. Very homely shadows her life gave of His light, for it was His:
homely, because of her poor way of living, and of the depth to which
the heavy foot of the world had crushed her. Yet they were there all
the time, in her cheery patience, if nothing more. To-night, for
instance, how differently the surging crowd seemed to her from what it
did to Knowles! She looked down on it from her high wood-steps with an
eager interest, ready with her weak, timid laugh to answer every
friendly call from below. She had no power to see them as types of
great classes; they were just so many living people, whom she knew, and
who, most of them, had been kind to her. Whatever good there was in
the vilest face, (and there was always something,) she was sure to see
it. The light made her poor eyes strong for that.

She liked to sit there in the evenings, being alone, yet never growing
lonesome; there was so much that was pleasant to watch and listen to,
as the cool brown twilight came on. If, as Knowles thought, the world
was a dreary discord, she knew nothing of it. People were going from
their work now,--they had time to talk and joke by the way,--stopping,
or walking slowly down the cool shadows of the pavement; while here and
there a lingering red sunbeam burnished a window, or struck athwart the
gray boulder-paved street. From the houses near you could catch a
faint smell of supper: very friendly people those were in these houses;
she knew them all well. The children came out with their faces washed,
to play, now the sun was down: the oldest of them generally came to sit
with her and hear a story.

After it grew darker, you would see the girls in their neat blue
calicoes go sauntering down the street with their sweethearts for a
walk. There was old Polston and his son Sam coming home from the
coal-pits, as black as ink, with their little tin lanterns on their
caps. After a while Sam would come out in his suit of Kentucky jean,
his face shining with the soap, and go sheepishly down to Jenny Ball's,
and the old man would bring his pipe and chair out on the pavement, and
his wif