y health?"

"But it's a forty-dollar wheel, in good condition," Martin had argued.
"And you've only let me have seven dollars on it. No, not even seven.
Six and a quarter; you took the interest in advance."

"If you want some more, bring the suit," had been the reply that sent
Martin out of the stuffy little den, so desperate at heart as to reflect
it in his face and touch his sister to pity.

Scarcely had they met when the Telegraph Avenue car came along and
stopped to take on a crowd of afternoon shoppers. Mrs. Higginbotham
divined from the grip on her arm as he helped her on, that he was not
going to follow her. She turned on the step and looked down upon him.
His haggard face smote her to the heart again.

"Ain't you comin'?" she asked

The next moment she had descended to his side.

"I'm walking--exercise, you know," he explained.

"Then I'll go along for a few blocks," she announced. "Mebbe it'll do me
good. I ain't ben feelin' any too spry these last few days."

Martin glanced at her and verified her statement in her general slovenly
appearance, in the unhealthy fat, in the drooping shoulders, the tired
face with the sagging lines, and in the heavy fall of her feet, without
elasticity--a very caricature of the walk that belongs to a free and
happy body.

"You'd better stop here," he said, though she had already come to a halt
at the first corner, "and take the next car."

"My goodness!--if I ain't all tired a'ready!" she panted. "But I'm just
as able to walk as you in them soles. They're that thin they'll bu'st
long before you git out to North Oakland."

"I've a better pair at home," was the answer.

"Come out to dinner to-morrow," she invited irrelevantly. "Mr.
Higginbotham won't be there. He's goin' to San Leandro on business."

Martin shook his head, but he had failed to keep back the wolfish, hungry
look that leapt into his eyes at the suggestion of dinner.

"You haven't a penny, Mart, and that's why you're walkin'. Exercise!"
She tried to sniff contemptuously, but succeeded in producing only a
sniffle. "Here, lemme see."

And, fumbling in her satchel, she pressed a five-dollar piece into his
hand. "I guess I forgot your last birthday, Mart," she mumbled lamely.

Martin's hand instinctively closed on the piece of gold. In the same
instant he knew he ought not to accept, and found himself struggling in
the throes of indecision. That bit of gold meant food, life, and light
in hi