to Mr Jones and Rowland, almoner and confidante to
all. Gladys, within doors, Miss Gladys, without; no one knows that she
has any other name. In spite of her beauty, her youth, her timidity, she
goes amongst scenes and people, from whom most women, even the best,
would shrink, and seems to bear about with her a charmed life and
invisible strength that nothing can destroy.

Amongst the wretched Irish who inhabit a portion of that vast, depraved
parish, she has an influence that even the clergy cannot boast, due to
her Irish extraction and slight accent; and the sufferings she has
herself undergone from gaunt famine and grim death, make her keenly
alive to their wants and feelings. No one has such power over the poor
untutored heathen children of the ragged school as she has, and no one
loves them as she does. She, too, like her mistress, has found her
vocation in their city home; who cannot find a vocation in any home, if
they will only look around them for it?

Whilst Rowland and Mr Jones discuss the sad news Rowland has to tell,
Miss Gwynne, Mrs Jones and Gladys discuss it also, for Mrs Jones has
joined the pair in the dining room. There is but one feeling in that
household--sorrow for Rowland and his family, anxiety about Netta. Tears
are in the eyes of all those true-hearted women as they think of the
probable fate of the once bright little belle of their country
neighbourhood, deserted, perhaps amongst the wild wildernesses of London
houses.

Mr Jones endeavours to console Rowland by suggesting that if Netta is
left by her husband she will surely fall back upon her brother; and when
he has exhausted what little portion of hope he can inspire, Rowland
turns resolutely to subjects that must be attended to, even if his heart
were breaking from sorrow.

The respected rector of that large parish was in very uncertain health,
and had gone abroad with his family for three months, leaving all the
parochial duties in the hands of his two curates. They were heavy enough
for three clergymen, but Mr Jones and Rowland found them almost too
weighty for them, unassisted by their chief; however, they fought
manfully through them, Sundays and week days.

Rowland refused Mr and Mrs Jones' invitation to dinner, and, crossing
the square, entered his solitary lodging in one of the opposite houses,
and began to write to his brother Owen. He told him all that he knew of
Howel and Netta, and begged him to break it to their parents as