h a movement of infinite lassitude and resigned acceptance of the
situation, Mrs. Hooven put the coin in her pocket. She had no right to
be proud any longer. Hilda must have food.

That evening, she and her child had supper at a cheap restaurant in
a poor quarter of the town, and passed the night on the benches of a
little uptown park.

Unused to the ways of the town, ignorant as to the customs and
possibilities of eating-houses, she spent the whole of her quarter upon
supper for herself and Hilda, and had nothing left wherewith to buy a
lodging.

The night was dreadful; Hilda sobbed herself to sleep on her mother's
shoulder, waking thereafter from hour to hour, to protest, though
wrapped in her mother's shawl, that she was cold, and to enquire why
they did not go to bed. Drunken men snored and sprawled near at hand.
Towards morning, a loafer, reeking of alcohol, sat down beside her,
and indulged in an incoherent soliloquy, punctuated with oaths and
obscenities. It was not till far along towards daylight that she fell
asleep.

She awoke to find it broad day. Hilda--mercifully--slept. Her mother's
limbs were stiff and lame with cold and damp; her head throbbed. She
moved to another bench which stood in the rays of the sun, and for a
long two hours sat there in the thin warmth, till the moisture of the
night that clung to her clothes was evaporated.

A policeman came into view. She woke Hilda, and carrying her in her
arms, took herself away.

"Mammy," began Hilda as soon as she was well awake; "Mammy, I'm hungry.
I want mein breakfest."

"Sure, sure, soon now, leedle tochter."

She herself was hungry, but she had but little thought of that. How was
Hilda to be fed? She remembered her experience of the previous day, when
the young man with the hose had given her money. Was it so easy, then,
to beg? Could charity be had for the asking? So it seemed; but all that
was left of her sturdy independence revolted at the thought. SHE beg!
SHE hold out the hand to strangers!

"Mammy, I'm hungry."

There was no other way. It must come to that in the end. Why temporise,
why put off the inevitable? She sought out a frequented street where men
and women were on their way to work. One after another, she let them
go by, searching their faces, deterred at the very last moment by some
trifling variation of expression, a firm set mouth, a serious, level
eyebrow, an advancing chin. Then, twice, when she had made a choice, and
br