ts tables and chairs, would be almost empty; but on nights like that on
which this story opens, a dark, cold December night, the seats were apt
to be well filled, mostly with slatternly, hard-featured women, and
dull-faced children, who sat staring stolidly about, while the music and
speaking went on; half stupefied by the warmth and tranquillity so
foreign to their lives.

Outside, a dismal sleet was falling, but from the open door of the
vestibule a great sheet of light fell upon the wet pavement, and above
it glowed a transparency bearing the words:

"A Merry Christmas to all! Come in!"

It was while the singing was going on, led by a high, sweet girl's
voice, that a human figure came hobbling out from a side street, and
stopped short at the very edge of the lighted space.

A woman by her dress, an old, old woman, with a seamed, blotched face;
an ugly, human wreck, all torn and battered and discolored by the storms
of life. Such was old Marg--"Luny Marg," as she was called in the haunts
that knew her best. Her history? She had forgotten it herself, very
likely, and there was no one to know or care--no one in the wide world
to care if she should at any moment be trampled to death, or slip from
the dock into the black river. The garret which lodged her would find
another tenant; the children of the gutters another target for their
missiles. Not that she was worse than others--only that she was old and
ugly and sharp of tongue, and the world--even _her_ world--has no use
for such as she.

For some time this forlorn creature continued to hover on the edge of
the lighted space. The sleet had become snow, and already a thin white
film covered the pavement, promising "a white Christmas," and the cold
increased from moment to moment.

The woman drew her filthy shawl closer; her jaws chattered, yet she
seemed unable to tear herself from the spot. Her eyes, alert under
their gray brows, as a rat's, were fixed now upon the open door, now
upon the transparency, yet she made no motion toward the proffered
shelter. Two men, hirsute and ragged, stopped near her and, after a
moments consultation, slunk across the square of light and disappeared
in the building. As the door was opened, there came a fuller burst of
song, and a rush of warm air, fragrant with the aroma of coffee and
oysters.

The old woman's body quivered with desire; food, warmth, rest--all that
her miserable frame demanded--were there within easy reach, for t