o
hide her head.

The morning hours went in this conflict. She was between-whiles hungry
and desperate, or stricken with shame. Fatigue, bringing the imperious
necessity for rest, intervened as a relief. Emilia moaned at the weary
length of the light, but when dusk fell and she beheld flame in the
lamps, it seemed to be too sudden and she was alarmed. Passive despair
had set in. She felt sick, though not weak, and the thought of asking
help had gone.

A street urchin, of the true London species, in whom excess of woollen
comforter made up for any marked scantiness in the rest of his attire,
came trotting the pavement, pouring one of the favourite tunes of his
native metropolis through the tube of a penny-whistle, from which it did
not issue so disguised but that attentive ears might pronounce it the
royal march of the Cannibal Islands. A placarded post beside a lamp met
this musician's eye; and, still piping, he bent his knees and read the
notification. Emilia thought of the Hillford and Ipley clubmen, the big
drum, the speeches, the cheers, and all the wild strength that lay in her
that happy morning. She watched the boy piping as if he were reading from
a score, and her sense of humour was touched. "You foolish boy!" she said
to herself softly. But when, having evidently come to the last printed
line, the boy rose and pocketed his penny-whistle, Emilia was nearly
laughing. "That's because he cannot turn over the leaf," she said, and
stood by the post till long after the boy had disappeared. The slight
emotion of fun had restored to her some of her lost human sensations, and
she looked about for a place where to indulge them undisturbed. One of
the bridges was in sight She yearned for the solitude of the wharf beside
it, and hurried to the steps. To descend she had to pass a street-organ
and a small figure bent over it. "Sei buon' Italiano?" she said. The
answer was a surly "Si." Emilia cried convulsively "Addio!" Her brain had
become on a sudden vacant of a thought, and all she knew was that she
descended.

CHAPTER XLI

"Sei buon' Italiana?"

Across what chasm did the words come to her?

It seemed but a minutes and again many hours back, that she had asked
that question of a little fellow, who, if he had looked up and nodded
would have given her great joy, but who kept his face dark from her and
with a sullen "Si" extinguished her last feeling of a desire for
companionship with life.

"Si," she replied