ent, the question of supper.

"You'll have to make out with the firelight for a little while," said
Esmay, picking up the rude lamp. "But you won't mind, dear?" She
stooped, kissed her sister, and was gone again.

The elder woman felt her eyes brimming saltily. The girl, so far as
years were concerned, might almost have been her daughter, since Nanna
had been both wife and widow at seventeen. For all that, the sisterly
relation was the true one between them; they were of the same strong
breed, even if Esmay were only in half a daughter of the Doomsmen. Nanna
had never been able to forget that her father's second wife had been of
the blood of the despised House People. In spite of herself she had
learned to love the dead Elena; she adored Esmay as a part of herself. A
primitive emotion, but then Nanna was the elemental woman.

When Esmay returned she brought with her a bowl containing a small
quantity of cottage cheese, hard and yellow with age. Surmounting the
bowl was a plate upon which were some crusts of bread and a knuckle of
ham, the latter being little more than the bare bone. A table stood in
the middle of the room, a handsome piece of buhl-work. Esmay drew it
forward to the fire and proceeded to arrange her feast. Scanty enough it
seemed, but the cloth covering the table was of the finest damask, the
plates that she took from a glazed cabinet were of the precious china of
Sevres, the knives and forks were in solid silver, and the drinking-cups
of silver-gilt had been fashioned by a great artist. A strange contrast!
beggar's fare served so royally; but hunger is not nice about trifles
one way or the other. And so it was upon the viands that Nanna's
attention was immediately concentrated. She glanced suspiciously at the
cheese, despairingly at the knuckle-bone, and then said, solemnly:

"Tell me, Esmay, what does it mean? Where is Ugo?"

"Ugo has deserted us--like the rats," answered the girl. "And the
situation--it is just this." She stopped and took a swallow of water.
"It is three months now since she--the mother--slipped away from our
arms, and of course the pension stopped with her. I gave the last
handful of tokens to Ugo to settle up his wages. So you see I'm a
beggar. It's a woman against the world, and one of us will have to
devour the other. Lucky, isn't it, that I woke up desperately hungry?
That means that I'll make a fight for it. Have the first bite."

"Esmay! You know that I have still my widow