Gladys has become the friend and confidential adviser of every member of that small household; no one but herself considers her as a servant.  She acts as housekeeper for Mrs Jones, maid to Miss Gwynne, school teacher and district visitor to Mr Jones and Rowland, almoner and confidante to all.  Gladys, within doors, Miss Gladys, without; no one knows that she has any other name.  In spite of her beauty, her youth, her timidity, she goes amongst scenes and people, from whom most women, even the best, would shrink, and seems to bear about with her a charmed life and invisible strength that nothing can destroy.

Amongst the wretched Irish who inhabit a portion of that vast, depraved parish, she has an influence that even the clergy cannot boast, due to her Irish extraction and slight accent; and the sufferings she has herself undergone from gaunt famine and grim death, make her keenly alive to their wants and feelings.  No one has such power over the poor untutored heathen children of the ragged school as she has, and no one loves them as she does.  She, too, like her mistress, has found her vocation in their city home; who cannot find a vocation in any home, if they will only look around them for it?

Whilst Rowland and Mr Jones discuss the sad news Rowland has to tell, Miss Gwynne, Mrs Jones and Gladys discuss it also, for Mrs Jones has joined the pair in the dining room.  There is but one feeling in that household—­sorrow for Rowland and his family, anxiety about Netta.  Tears are in the eyes of all those true-hearted women as they think of the probable fate of the once bright little belle of their country neighbourhood, deserted, perhaps amongst the wild wildernesses of London houses.

Mr Jones endeavours to console Rowland by suggesting that if Netta is left by her husband she will surely fall back upon her brother; and when he has exhausted what little portion of hope he can inspire, Rowland turns resolutely to subjects that must be attended to, even if his heart were breaking from sorrow.

The respected rector of that large parish was in very uncertain health, and had gone abroad with his family for three months, leaving all the parochial duties in the hands of his two curates.  They were heavy enough for three clergymen, but Mr Jones and Rowland found them almost too weighty for them, unassisted by their chief; however, they fought manfully through them, Sundays and week days.

Rowland refused Mr and Mrs Jones’ invitation to dinner, and, crossing the square, entered his solitary lodging in one of the opposite houses, and began to write to his brother Owen.  He told him all that he knew of Howel and Netta, and begged him to break it to their parents as best he might.