he Doctor, "at this bony wrist, and the strained
sinews of the instep! A working-woman,--the very type of her class."

"God forbid!" muttered Mitchell.

"Why?" demanded May. "What does the fellow intend by the figure? I
cannot catch the meaning."

"Ask him," said the other, dryly. "There he stands,"--pointing to Wolfe,
who stood with a group of men, leaning on his ash-rake.

The Doctor beckoned him with the affable smile which kind-hearted men
put on, when talking to these people.

"Mr. Mitchell has picked you out as the man who did this,--I'm sure I
don't know why. But what did you mean by it?"

"She be hungry."

Wolfe's eyes answered Mitchell, not the Doctor.

"Oh-h! But what a mistake you have made, my fine fellow! You have given
no sign of starvation to the body. It is strong,--terribly strong. It
has the mad, half-despairing gesture of drowning."

Wolfe stammered, glanced appealingly at Mitchell, who saw the soul of
the thing, he knew. But the cool, probing eyes were turned on himself
now,--mocking, cruel, relentless.

"Not hungry for meat," the furnace-tender said at last.

"What then? Whiskey?" jeered Kirby, with a coarse laugh.

Wolfe was silent a moment, thinking.

"I dunno," he said, with a bewildered look. "It mebbe. Summat to make
her live, I think,--like you. Whiskey ull do it, in a way."

The young man laughed again. Mitchell flashed a look of disgust
somewhere,--not at Wolfe.

"May," he broke out impatiently, "are you blind? Look at that woman's
face! It asks questions of God, and says, 'I have a right to know.' Good
God, how hungry it is!"

They looked a moment; then May turned to the mill-owner:--

"Have you many such hands as this? What are you going to do with them?
Keep them at puddling iron?"

Kirby shrugged his shoulders. Mitchell's look had irritated him.

"_Ce n'est pas mon affaire_. I have no fancy for nursing infant
geniuses. I suppose there are some stray gleams of mind and soul among
these wretches. The Lord will take care of his own; or else they can
work out their own salvation. I have heard you call our American system
a ladder which any man can scale. Do you doubt it? Or perhaps you want
to banish all social ladders, and put us all on a flat table-land,--eh,
May?"

The Doctor looked vexed, puzzled. Some terrible problem lay hid in this
woman's face, and troubled these men. Kirby waited for an answer, and,
receiving none, went on, warning with his subject.

"I te