The rest of the afternoon and evening passed like those of the previous day, and the morrow was as the yesterday had been. Indeed, there was little variety in the routine of the Bird ménage—so little that Joan soon began to wonder how they distinguished one month or one year from another. Few customers came to the house, for most of the dressmaking was put out to Mrs. Bird by the managers of large shops, who had confidence in her, and were not afraid to trust her with costly materials, which she made up, generally into skirts, and took back in the evenings. So it came about that all day long Mrs. Bird and Sally sewed, while Jim carved endless walking-sticks, and Joan sat by giving such help as she could, now listening to her hostess’s good-natured chatter and now to the shrill song of the canary. At first, after all that she had gone through, this mode of life was a rest to her. It was delightful to be obliged neither to think nor to work unless she so wished; it was delightful to know that she was beyond the reach of Samuel Rock, and could not be harried by the coarse tongue of Mrs. Gillingwater or by the gossip of her neighbours. The atmosphere of goodness in which she lived was very soothing also: it was a new thing for Joan to pass her days where there was no hate, no passion, no jealousy, and no violence—where, on the contrary, charity and loving-kindness reigned supreme. Soon she grew very fond of little Mrs. Bird, as, indeed, anybody must have done who had the good fortune to know her; and began to share her adoration of the two “babies,” the great patient creature who faced his infirmities with a perpetual smile, and the sweet child from whom love seemed to radiate. But after a while, as her body and mind shook off their weariness, these things began to pall; she longed for work, for anything that would enable her to escape from her own thoughts,—and as yet no work was forthcoming. At times, tiring of Jim’s smile as he hewed out libellous likenesses of herself upon his walking-sticks, and of the trilling of the canary, she would seek refuge in her own sitting-room, where she read and re-read the books that Henry had given her; and at times, longing for air, she would escape from the stuffy little house to the Park, to walk up and down there till she grew weary—an amusement which she found had its drawbacks. At last, when she had been a fortnight in Kent Street, she asked Mrs. Bird if there was any prospect of getting employment.