No one, save good Mrs. Turner, had seen the poor girl since the evening Pollie had brought the lost one home. The poor mother hid, as it were, her recovered treasure, fearful that even the mere passing glance of scorn should for a moment rest on her blighted child. So up in that little room, away from prying eyes, lived the mother and daughter. Nora was not idle. Not for worlds would she have rested dependent on that dear forgiving mother's hard earnings for her daily food; therefore, whilst Mrs. Flanagan toiled in Covent Garden Market, her daughter's slender fingers diligently laboured at bookbinding, the trade she had pursued years ago, in the time when her heart was innocent and happy.
On the evening of which we write, when Sally Grimes and Lizzie Stevens had gone to their own homes after the peaceful hours spent with Mrs. Turner, the old woman sat for some time silent and sad, with elbows resting on the table, and her face buried in her hands.
At length she looked up.
"My Nora's very sadly," she observed.
The widow paused in her needlework, and gazed at the troubled countenance of her old friend.
"She is not ill, is she?" was the question: "I saw her this morning, and then she seemed pretty much the same."
"No, not ill in body, at least not much," replied the poor mother; "but oh! Mrs. Turner, my Nora is not like my Nora of days gone by."
And the grey head bent low upon the table, and the worn wrinkled face was hidden, to hide the bitter tears which fell.
Her sympathising listener put down her work, and rising softly, laid her hand gently upon her neighbour's sorrow-bent head.
"Take heart, Mrs. Flanagan," she soothed; "it will all come right at last, in God's own time. Just think how once you feared you should never see your daughter again, and then"——