Yes; it was good
to be constrained to think of another's sorrows.
There passed a fortnight, during which Jane spent some hours each
day with Pennyloaf. By the kindness of fate only one of Bob's
children survived him, but it was just this luckless infant whose
existence made Pennyloaf's position so difficult. Alone, she could
have gone back to her slop-work, or some less miserable slavery
might have been discovered; but Pennyloaf dreaded leaving her child
each day in the care of strangers, being only too well aware what
that meant. Mrs. Candy was, of course, worse than useless; Stephen
the potman had more than his work set in looking after her. Whilst
Miss Lant and Jane were straining their wits on the hardest of all
problems--to find a means of livelihood for one whom society
pronounced utterly superfluous, Pennyloaf most unexpectedly solved
the question by her own effort. Somewhere near the Meat Market, one
night, she encountered an acquaintance, a woman of not much more
than her own age, who had recently become a widow, and was
supporting herself (as well as four little ones) by keeping a stall
at which she sold children's secondhand clothing; her difficulty was
to dispose of her children whilst she was doing business at night.
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