Yet she could not help returning; and her work would soon fall unheeded from her hands again.
It was the house that had been empty, years ago.

It had remained so for a long time.

At last, and while she had been away from home, this family had taken it; and it was repaired and newly painted; and there were birds and flowers about it; and it looked very different from its old self.

But she never thought of the house.

The children and their father were all in all.
When he had dined, she could see them, through the open windows, go down with their governess or nurse, and cluster round the table; and in the still summer weather, the sound of their childish voices and clear laughter would come ringing across the street, into the drooping air of the room in which she sat.