Page:Gissing - The Nether World, vol. I, 1889.djvu/253

 pains. Occasionally her eyes wandered, and once they rested upon her grandfather’s face for several minutes. But for the cry of a milkman or a paper-boy in the street, no sound broke the quietness of the summer morning. The blessed sunshine, so rarely shed from a London sky,—sunshine, the source of all solace to mind and body,—reigned gloriously in heaven and on earth. When more than an hour had passed, Snowdon came and sat down beside the girl. Without speaking she showed him what she had written. He nodded approvingly.

“Shall I say it to you, grandfather?”

“Yes.”

Jane collected her thoughts, then began to repeat the parable of the Samaritan. From the first words it was evident that she frequently thus delivered passages committed to memory; evident, too, that instruction and a natural good sense guarded her against the gabbling method of recitation. When she had finished Snowdon spoke with her for a while on the subject of the story. In all he said there was