er sweep out the passage and brush
down the steps. Oh, I do want some breakfast!" she added, with a
sigh.

While she was sweeping down the steps before the front door, her
stepmother came into the kitchen again. The semblance of a smile
crossed her face as she looked at the neatly-arranged chairs, and
heard the broom going in the distance.

"We're to be kept tidy, now, I s'pose," she muttered, with a laugh.
"I wonder how long it'll last. She won't get much encouragement
here."

Jessie came into the kitchen with her broom, and found her stepmother
frying bacon. It smelt very good, and Jessie was ravenously hungry.

"Does father have to go to work every day as early as this?" she
asked.

"Work!" cried Mrs. Lang, with a scornful laugh. "Work! I've never
known your father work since he crossed my path! It's the races he's
off to; you wouldn't find him get up at this hour for anything else."

Jessie stared wide-eyed. "Doesn't he ever work?" she gasped.
"How does he live, then?"

"Well you may ask!" snapped Mrs. Lang bitterly. "He's kept. I do
the work, and he finds that more to his taste. I've got the house
full of lodgers, and I can tell you it takes me all my time, and
more, to look after them. I never get any pleasure, and your father
never gets any work, and he thinks that is just as it should be."

Jessie stood for a moment looking very thoughtful. Everything in
this house seemed to her wrong. Just as it all used to be in her old
home before she went to her grandfather's; but she knew nothing
better then, she was too young. Now she was older and better able to
understand, for she had had a long and happy experience of what a
home could and should be, where each did a share, and thought always
of others first. She felt suddenly a great pity for her stepmother,
and a liking such as she had not thought possible an hour or so ago.
Perhaps she could do something, she thought, to make her less
unhappy; at any rate she could help her.

"I will help you," she said, looking up at her with a smile.
"It won't be so hard with two of us to see to things."

Mrs. Lang's face softened a little, and a smile actually gleamed in
her eyes as she glanced from the frying-pan to Jessie. "Yes, you can
help a bit, I expect, you seem to know how to set about things.
Did you help your grandmother?"

"Oh yes, a lot," said Jessie, and at the recollection the tears
brimmed up in her eyes. "I wonder how she is, and how