ly impossible for the same reason, and the
added one that the children must not be left, and she struggled on,
growing a little more haggard and worn with every week, but the pretty
eyes still holding a gleam of the old merriment. Even that went at last.
It was a hard winter. The steadiest work could not give them food enough
or warmth enough. The children cried with hunger and shivered with cold.
There was no refuge save in Norah's bed, under the ragged quilts; and
they cowered there till late in the day, watching Rose as she sat silent
at the sewing-machine. There was small help for them in the house. The
workers were all in like case, and for the most part drowned their
troubles in stale beer from the bucket-shop below.

"Put the children in an asylum, and then you can marry Mike Rooney and
be comfortable enough," they said to her, but Rose shook her head.

"I've mothered 'em so far, and I'll see 'em through," she said, "but the
saints only knows how. If I can't do it by honest work, there's one way
left that's sure, an' I'll try that."

There came a Saturday night when she took her bundle of work, shirts
again, and now eighty-five cents a dozen. There were five dozen, and
when the $1.50 was laid aside for rent it was easy to see what remained
for food, coal, and light. Clothing had ceased to be part of the
question. The children were barefoot. They had a bit of meat on Sundays,
but for the rest, bread, potatoes, and tea were the diet, with a cabbage
and bit of pork now and then for luxuries. Norah had been failing, and
to-night Rose planned to buy her "something with a taste to it," and
looked at the sausages hanging in long links with a sudden reckless
determination to get enough for all. She was faint with hunger, and
staggered as she passed a basement restaurant, from which came savory
smells, snuffed longingly by some half-starved children. Her turn was
long in coming, and as she laid her bundle on the counter she saw
suddenly that her needle had "jumped," and that half an inch or so of a
band required resewing. As she looked the foreman's knife slipped under
the place, and in a moment half the band had been ripped.

"That's no good," he said. "You're getting botchier all the time."

"Give it to me," Rose pleaded. "I'll do it over."

"Take it if you like," he said indifferently, "but there's no pay for
that kind o' work."

He had counted her money as he spoke, and Rose cried out as she saw the
sum.

"Do