"They will never believe I forgot to tell them," she said to herself.

"Everything I do is wrong in their eyes and stupid in my own." And she sat down on the lowest step of the stairs and leaned her head against the banisters.
To her presently came a ministering angel in the shape of Fraeulein, who had begged an egg from the cook, had boiled it over her spirit-lamp, and now presented it with effusion to her friend on a little tray, with two thin slices of bread-and-butter.
"You are all goodness, Fraeulein," said Hester, raising her small, haggard face out of her hands.

"It is wrong of me to give so much trouble." She did not want the egg, but she knew its oval was the only shape in which Fraeulein could express her silent sympathy.

So she accepted it gratefully, and ate it on the stairs, with the tenderly severe Fraeulein watching every mouthful.
Life did not seem quite such a hopeless affair when the little meal was finished.

There were breaks in the clouds, after all.