"Albert has got a little place in the printing-office. He was took on when Tom was laid up with rheumatic fever. Juliet is gone to the kitchen to try if she can get a drop of soup or something. They only make it for sick people now the hot weather has set in. Florry and Tommy and Willie and Neddy are all at school, because the school-board officer came round about them the other day. But it is the church school as they go to, where they ain't kept up to it quite so sharp. They will be in presently." "And the baby?" "Oh, the baby is out with Amy. He's that fractious with his teeth that Thomas can hardly put up with him in the house." Mrs. Rowles was now taking out the good things from her basket. She produced a piece of bacon, some beans, about a peck of peas, a home-made dripping cake, and some new-laid eggs. "Edward packed it with his own hands," she explained. "He hoped you would not be too proud to accept a few bits of things from the country." "Proud? Me proud?" and Mrs. Mitchell burst into tears. "We are too hungry to be proud," said the sick man, with more interest in his tone. "They do smell good. They remind me of the country." After rubbing her eyes Mrs. Rowles looked about for a saucepan, and, having found an old one in the cupboard, began to fill it with the bacon and the broad beans. "We killed a pig in the spring," she said; "and Rowles is a rare one to keep his garden stuff going." Little was said while Mrs. Rowles cooked, and Mrs. Mitchell sewed, and Thomas sniffed the reviving green odour of the fresh vegetables. This quiet was presently interrupted by the sound of someone coming up the stairs. Mrs. Mitchell listened. "That is Juliet. There! I expected it!" And a crash was heard, and a cry, and they knew that something unpleasant had happened. "There never was such a child!" said the mother; while the father moaned out, "Oh, dear!" Mrs. Rowles went out on the landing at the top of the stairs, and saw a girl of about thirteen sitting crouched on the lower half of the double flight, beside her the broken remains of a jug, and some soup lying in a pool, which she was trying to scrape up with her fingers, sucking them after each attempt. "Is that you, Juliet?" said her aunt. "Yes. I've spilt the soup and broke the jug." "Oh, Juliet, how could you?" "The jug had got no handle; that's why I came to drop it. And the soup was only a teeny drop, so it's no great loss. And the bannisters was all broke away for lighting the fires, and that's how I came to fall over; and I might have broke my leg and been took to the hospital, and I should have had plenty of grub there." The child said this in a surly tone, as if all that had happened had been an injury to her--even her escape from breaking her leg--and to no one else. "Well, come up," said Mrs. Rowles, who would hardly have been so calm had the soup and the jug been her own; "come up and see what there is for dinner here."