ND so time went on happily and swiftly. The summer days came and went, while Meg and her young husband worked cheerily at their allotted tasks.

Many a time did Meg visit the forlorn attic, carrying not only dainties for poor suffering Dickie, but cheer and sunshine for his devoted little sister. If Meg had discovered in Cherry traces of "a disciple," she did not fail to do her part in giving her many "a cup of cold water."

This she did in various ways, so tenderly and unobtrusively, as to be almost unnoticed by Cherry at the time. She brought her some soap and an old towel, and coaxed Dickie "to feel how nice the warm water was," and when his ablutions were done, to their joy he had a long sound sleep. Cherry made up her mind she would try it again another day.

Then Meg begged a bowl without a handle, which her mother-in-law had done with as useless for washing; this she carried round to Cherry and taught her to wash over her floor, so that if the old boards might not look white, they would at least be fresh. And once Meg put on her oldest dress and scrubbed the room from end to end. She also took home the old shawl one hot August day and returned it in the evening clean and sweet.

She was rewarded, if reward she needed, by Cherry's brightened face, and by Dickie's creeping off his mattress and up into her arms, where he would lie peacefully while she told him story after story of the little lamb who was lost on the mountains, and was sought by the Good Shepherd, until He carried it home rejoicing.

By-and-by Dickie began to run about the bare room with fresh energy; but as he began to revive, so Cherry seemed to get despondent. There was a look of alarm on her face which puzzled Meg; but the child would never give any explanation. She resolutely kept Dickie up-stairs, hushing him from making any extra noise, and Meg heard her once whisper to him in a warning voice—

"Dickie, they'll know yer well again if yer don't mind; and then—I hope they've forgot you, Dickie, for a bit."

He seemed to comprehend, and turned to the bits of toys and broken crockery which he called tea-things as contentedly as before.

"Is he ever naughty?" asked Meg softly.

Cherry nodded.

"What do you do then?"

"I talk to 'im, and tell 'im how sorry mother'd ha' been, and how sorry He is," reverently; "and then he soon gets right again, and says he's 'good now.'"

One day when Meg went she found Cherry with an old hat on, and Dickie also with some apology for walking things.

"Are you going out, dear?" she asked, surprised, for Cherry's aversion to leave her room had been so great.

"We're goin' hopping," answered the child. "Father's goin' to take us; and I think it 'ull be the best thing for Dickie. He'll be able to run out in the air, and so—"

She placed in Meg's hand a pawn-ticket, as if she would perfectly understand.

"What is this, dear?"

"That's the blanket. I don't know no one as would keep it for us, and so I put it there. Here's the money, and you can get it out for me, if you will, when we come back. I'd ha' come to you about it, only I didn't rightly know where you lived."

It did not occur to Meg to explain where her home was at the moment, though afterwards it cost her many a pang that she had not done so. She was busy thinking about the blanket; and just as she had promised to do as Cherry wished about the pawn-ticket, Cherry's father came up the stairs and entered the room.

It was the first time Meg had met him, and he stared in surprise at such a sweet vision in that desolate place.

"This is a friend what came to see Dickie when he was ill, father," said Cherry in a deprecating tone.

"Eh! Oh, well, Dickie's all right now; and the train 'ull be gone if you don't come at once. We shan't be back again for many a long day."

He looked askance at Meg, and evidently waited for her to go. She bade a hasty good-bye to the children, and went down-stairs with a sad heart.

So Meg lost sight of her little friends, and though in a month or two's time she went several times to their attic, she could hear nothing of them. The attic had other occupants, and the child and his crippled sister seemed forgotten.

Meanwhile, the winter came and was passing away, while Meg was busy from morning till night. If she were not rendering efficient help to her mother-in-law, she had some work of her own, over which she bent with a happy look in her face which made it like sunshine.

One morning as she was returning from fetching some yeast for her bread-making, for Meg had set up a regular practice of supplying her husband with her own baking, she entered the doorway just as the toddling girl belonging to the woman on the ground floor did the same.

The little one was running at full speed, and before Meg could put out her hand to save her, she tripped over a bit of brick which was lying in her path, and down she came with her head against the stone doorstep.

Meg quickly picked her up, and recognizing her, knocked at the door just as the child's mother ran to see what the screams were about.

"I'm afraid she's hurt," she said, entering; "her head came right against the corner."

"Dear, dear, dear!" exclaimed the mother, with an inward feeling that here was another misfortune; "I never did see such children! There, child, leave off screaming and I'll see to yer."

Though the words were rough, the face of the woman was not unkindly. Somehow Meg had never come across her before, and had been too shy to make any advances without being asked, though she had often pitied the poor woman as she passed and heard the crying babies and general hubbub.

"Thank you, Mrs. Seymour," said the woman, taking the child from Meg's arms. "My! ain't it bleeding! Whatever shall I do?"

"I should lay a wet rag on it," said Meg; "and then we can see how big the place is. Perhaps it isn't so much as it looks."

"Dear, dear, dear!" said the mother again; "I haven't one bit of rag handy; I have had to use all mine up for my boy's leg what was bad so long."

Meg ran up-stairs, and soon returned with a nice clean piece from a store of old linen which had been given her at the Hall. She looked round for a basin, and soon had a little lukewarm water in it, and the rag put on the child's forehead. She sat holding it, the mother looking on at Meg's swift gentle ways with evident surprise and pleasure.

When the crying grew less, and the little thing, pale and miserable, was laid on the little bed in the corner, Meg bethought herself of her bread, and took up her basket to go.

"Thank you kindly," said the woman gratefully; "you've quite cheered me up a bit. This is a hard life for us poor mothers."

Her eyes, which had once perhaps been as bright as Meg's, were sunken and tired. She glanced at the deserted breakfast-table, and said wearily—

"Work as me and him do, you may say, night and day, we can't satisfy their mouths. I can't tell you how I long for somethin' different from bread, Mrs. Seymour!"

Meg's eyes had followed hers, and she could see that there had been nothing on that table that morning but milkless tea and dry bread. Nothing remained but a few small crumbs.

"My 'usband says as it's hard to work and bring 'ome all he've earned, and then not to have enough after all. But what can I do? They've eaten a loaf and a half this mornin', and not one of 'em but could ha' eaten double!"

"You have six children, haven't you?" said Meg, sympathizing truly, but feeling powerless to help.

"Eight," answered the woman, "and all under twelve year old. Here's the baby."

She led the way into the back room, where in a good-sized bed a baby still slept soundly.

"You must have your hands full," said Meg kindly; "I wish I could think of anything to help you. Where are they all?"

"Gone to school. They take even my biggest girl away from me, her as might be some 'elp, and I'm sure she don't want schooling as bad as she wants food."

"It comes very hard on you. And so you have to stay at home with the babies?"

"That's just it. I might put 'em out to be 'minded,' but I'm not going to have 'em starved under my eyes, and burnt and neglected and slapped! Not but what I slap 'em myself sometimes," she added with compunction, "when I'm that tired—but not so often considering; and I'm not going to put 'em out for nobody."

She seemed glad to have some one to pour out her griefs to, and Meg hardly liked to hurry away.

"I thought when I see you first as you'd soon get untidy like the rest of the girls, but you ain't yet!" remarked the woman, as they went back to the other room.

Meg smiled.

"I hope not," she said gently; "but you know I have not got a lot of children to feed and see to. I should have no excuse now."

Just as she was turning to the door she thought of something.

"I wonder if you ever make oatmeal porridge for your children?" she asked.

The woman made a wry face.

"Law, my dear, they wouldn't touch it!"

"I think they would if it were made nicely."

"I'm sure you've been so kind and clever, that I ought to think of what you say," apologized the woman; "but I'm afraid—"

"What have you for dinner to-day, if I may ask?" said Meg, hesitating, in her shy way.

"Bread," answered the mother emphatically; "and I meant to pour some boiling water on it, and put some salt, and make believe it was soup. It's so bitter cold to-day."

"I wonder if you'd be offended if I offered to make some porridge for you?"

"I shan't be offended; but I know they won't touch it!"

Meg laughed.

"You see!" she said brightly. "Tell them a friend brought them some, and you give them their choice of that or bread, and I expect—"

"I haven't any oatmeal," said the woman.

"But I have; I'll go and fetch some. My husband has it every day for breakfast."

"You don't say so!" exclaimed the woman.

"But I must make my bread first, for if I don't it will not have time to rise. When I have done that I'll bring the oatmeal down with me, and make it for them. Will you let me?"

The woman thanked her; but before Meg went up to her bread she requested that a saucepan of water might be put over the fire instead of the kettle, which the woman had already put on for the early dinner.

"Will you mind measuring the water into it?" asked Meg; "eight half-pints is what I want, and a good teaspoonful of salt."

Mrs. Blunt said she would, and Meg went away to her bread.

That did not take her half-an-hour, but when she came down the woman had done her best to smarten up her room. The little hurt child had had its hands washed, and was now fast asleep, and the woman herself looked three degrees fresher than when Meg left her.

"I have brought half-a-pound of oatmeal if you will accept it," she said, entering, with her clean cooking apron still on, and her neat hair uncovered by her hat.

"It's very kind, I'm sure," said the woman. "Now you must show me the right way, and then I shall know."

"Is the water boiling yet?" asked Meg, seating herself near the fire and peeping into the steaming saucepan.

"That it is! Don't it look like it?"

"Because it must boil," explained Meg, "or the oatmeal would sink to the bottom and burn."

"Oh, that's the reason?"

"Yes; and I've brought down my wooden spoon in case you had not got one. The iron ones get so hot."

"Must it be stirred all the time?"

"Oh no, every now and then. See, I'm going to sprinkle in the oatmeal with my hand. If I put it in all at once it would fall into lumps, and children hate lumps! At least I did when I was a child."

Mrs. Blunt stood by watching.

"And how much do ye pay a pound for it, Mrs. Seymour?"

"Twopence-halfpenny where Jem gets it."

"What do ye eat it with? I've heard tell of treacle, but I'm no hand at sweet things myself."

"No, more am I," said Meg. "Of course the best thing is a little milk; I dare say half a pint would do; but you might give them their choice of sugar."

Mrs. Blunt sighed. She had spent nearly all she had left on the baker's loaves which went so fast, and she hardly knew where the milk and sugar were to come from.

Meg guessed that, from the change in the woman's face from bright interest to despondency.

She thought for a moment, and then she said with some little hesitation—

"I wonder if the children would think me interfering if I were to bring them a little milk and sugar as a present?"

The woman turned away to the other room, nominally to fetch the baby, who was stirring, but really to get rid of a few tears. It was the way it was done, she told herself, that was so nice. She couldn't have let every one do her such a kindness.

"Mind you stir it while I am gone," said Meg, "because they won't take to burnt porridge, for certain! You see it doesn't need much fire after once the saucepan boils."

When she came back with the pound of sugar and a pint of milk, the porridge had had its full half-hour, and was done.

"Now stand it on the hob, and if it simmers a little it will not hurt at all. Pour it out the last thing, and see if they do not like it better than bread, and feel more satisfied too. I've heard that it is the best thing you can have to make children grow."

"May I bring back your spoon and tell you how I got on with it?" asked Mrs. Blunt, already longing to taste what looked and smelt so good.

"Do; I shall be glad to see you," answered Meg. Then pausing with a sudden remembrance, she said, blushing, "Do you remember those loving words of our Saviour to all who are weary and troubled, 'Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and He shall sustain thee'?"

"I've heard 'em before," answered the woman, "but I don't know much about it."

"We all can, just by taking Him at His word," said Meg gently, "and I don't know a burden that any one can have that will be too hard for Him to help in."

The woman looked in Meg's face to see if she really meant it, and the clear eyes she met were too earnest to be mistaken.

The woman wrung her hand and went back to the porridge without speaking.

When Meg had finished dinner, and was sitting down to her needle, there was a tap at the door, and on saying "Come in," Mrs. Blunt with her two babies appeared in the doorway.

"Well?" asked Meg, smiling.

"Well," said the woman, sinking into the seat Meg pushed forward, "when they came in they sniffed and looked about, and asked where the loaf was, and peeped into the milk-jug, and then they spied the saucepan, and came over as curious as anything to see what it was. I told 'em as it was a present to 'em, but they had no call to eat it unless they liked; and with that I poured out a little into the basins. Some of 'em was that hungry that they didn't think twice about it, and after a mouthful or two that they wasn't sure about, they finished what I gave 'em, and asked for more! That they did—all but one of 'em, and she turned up her nose at it and stuck to the bread."

"Did they finish it?" asked Meg.

"All but a bit I put by for their father. And they told me to say as they was much obliged, and hadn't had such a nice hot dinner I don't know when."

Meg was delighted. She got up to look into her little bread-pan, and the woman's eyes followed her curiously.

"I wish I could see ye do it," she said, "'cause I've heard as it's a deal cheaper."

"Of course it is," said Meg; "and if you have to stay at home to mind your babies, you could not use some of your time better. Mother used to say it went quite twice as far as baker's bread. I'll show you how to do it next time I bake. I don't do it every day, because we don't need it."

"Will you?" asked Mrs. Blunt earnestly.

"That I will. I'll let you know when to come."

The woman rose, and called her little girl from the window, where she had been absorbed in looking out from such an unusual height.

"She's better then?" asked Meg.

"Yes," answered her mother, undoing the bandage; "see, it ain't such a great place. How it did bleed to be sure!"

"I should keep it wet for the present," said Meg; "water softens things so."

"That's true," said the woman. Then hesitating, she added, "Mrs. Seymour, you and your mother-in-law has been the only creatures since I came to London who has ever done me a kindness—I don't forgit it. The neighbours come in at times, and they mean to be kind; but one and another 'ull say a little word as 'ull make ye discontented with yer lot; and it ain't a bit of good. We've got to bear it, and makin' the worst of it don't mend it."

"No," answered Meg softly, "that's why——"

"Yes," interrupted the woman. "You say I've got a burden, but you say there's the Lord as can lighten it, and I shan't forgit. For one thing, I can see as you let Him carry yours."

She turned abruptly and left the room, and Meg's eyes filled with tears to think how little, after all, she loved and trusted that dear Lord who loved her and gave Himself for her.