erely flat and expressionless, but not one was
turned toward her in compassion. The expressions of the faces might be
various, but an underlying callousness was discoverable beneath every
mask. The people seemed removed from her immeasurably; they were
infinitely above her. What was she to them, she and her baby, the
crippled outcasts of the human herd, the unfit, not able to survive,
thrust out on the heath to perish?

To beg from these people did not yet occur to her. There was no pride,
however, in the matter. She would have as readily asked alms of so many
sphinxes.

She went on. Without willing it, her feet carried her in a wide circle.
Soon she began to recognise the houses; she had been in that street
before. Somehow, this was distasteful to her; so, striking off at right
angles, she walked straight before her for over a dozen blocks. By now,
it was growing darker. The sun had set. The hands of a clock on the
power-house of a cable line pointed to seven. No doubt, Minna had come
long before this time, had found her mother gone, and had--just what had
she done, just what COULD she do? Where was her daughter now? Walking
the streets herself, no doubt. What was to become of Minna, pretty
girl that she was, lost, houseless and friendless in the maze of these
streets? Mrs. Hooven, roused from her lethargy, could not repress an
exclamation of anguish. Here was misfortune indeed; here was calamity.
She bestirred herself, and remembered the address of the boarding-house.
She might inquire her way back thither. No doubt, by now the policeman
would be gone home for the night. She looked about. She was in the
district of modest residences, and a young man was coming toward her,
carrying a new garden hose looped around his shoulder.

"Say, Meest'r; say, blease----"

The young man gave her a quick look and passed on, hitching the coil
of hose over his shoulder. But a few paces distant, he slackened in his
walk and fumbled in his vest pocket with his fingers. Then he came back
to Mrs. Hooven and put a quarter into her hand.

Mrs. Hooven stared at the coin stupefied. The young man disappeared.
He thought, then, that she was begging. It had come to that; she,
independent all her life, whose husband had held five hundred acres of
wheat land, had been taken for a beggar. A flush of shame shot to her
face. She was about to throw the money after its giver. But at the
moment, Hilda again exclaimed:

"Mammy, I'm hungry."

Wit