ething has turned your brain!" he stuttered
at last, "and you had better look sharp and get it right again, I can
tell you, or I'll know the reason why."

"My brain is all right," said Mary Lang quietly; "trouble has turned
my heart, perhaps, and that isn't likely ever to get right again; but
I don't see that that can matter to you. You never cared for me or
my heart, or how I felt, or how anybody else felt, but yourself."

"I care about Bert Snow coming here to lodge, and he's coming, too!
Do you hear? I told him he could, and I ain't going to be made to
look small--"

"You won't look any smaller," said his wife reassuringly, and he
wondered stupidly exactly what she meant, or if she meant anything.
"You must tell your friend he cannot come here, I haven't got a room
for him. I am not going to have such as he in Charlie's room.
Jessie is to have it, and it's about time, I think, that your
daughter had a bed and a room fit for her to sleep in," she added
scathingly.

Harry Lang did not care in the least whether Jessie had or had not a
bed, or if she slept on the doorstep; but he cared very much about
his friend, and he meant to have his own way. But though he stormed,
and bullied, and even struck his wife, he found her, for the first
time, as firm as adamant, and quite as indifferent to him.
His orders meant nothing to her, and the change in her impressed him
very much.

So Jessie, for the first time since she left Springbrook, had a real
bedroom again, and a place she could call her own. She did not quite
like using it, but she felt that her mother wished it. Mrs. Lang
would have liked to keep the little room always sacred to the memory
of him who had spent most of his little life in it, but rather Jessie
should have it than that it should be desecrated by a betting,
drinking, gambling stranger, who would pollute it, she felt, by his
presence!

So Jessie and her possessions were installed. It was not a long
business, for her belongings were very few. She had not had a penny
or a gift of any kind since she came to London, except a little book
of hymns that Miss Patch had given her, and one of Charlie's
favourite books which he had wished her to have. Her little stock of
clothing had never been added to since she came, until now, when her
stepmother seemed to find pleasure in providing her with a very
thorough outfit of mourning.

Now that she had lost her boy, the one and only joy that was hers,
Mrs.